OECD Conference on New Frontiers in Subjective Well-being Measurement, 4 March 2024, Paris, France

1. Stats NZ
How Stats NZ approaches incorporating Māori
perspectives when measuring quality of life and
subjective well-being
OECD workshop on Globally inclusive approaches to measurement
March 2024
Dr Rosemary Goodyear

2. Ka mua, ka muri
(walking backwards into the future)

3. 3
How Stats NZ has been incorporating
indigenous perspectives
• Development of Te Kupenga – Māori social survey
• Incorporating some concepts from Te Kupenga into Our main survey
of wellbeing – General Social Survey – particularly family/whanau
wellbeing
• Working with our partners around frameworks for use of
administrative data for Māori
• NZ Census of Population and Dwellings – trialling iwi led collections,
working with Iwi authorities around evaluation of data and decisions
around output.

4. Whare tapa whā to Te Kupenga – incorporating Māori
frameworks of Maori

5. Te Kupenga – Māori
social survey
• To develop Te Kupenga in 2013, we
undertook a full consultation
process that involved both
government agencies and Māori
stakeholders.
• The unique aspect of this process
was that Māori stakeholders were
fundamental to developing the
framework that would underpin the
survey, and consequently its content
and the information the survey
would collect

6. 6
Here are some things we heard when first developing Te
Kupenga:
• Our rangatahi view their culture in a different way, and it depends upon what they know and how
they were raised…but their identity it is still important to them…”
• Bailey Mackey, Producer of The GC
“
“Being Māori also means being able to have access to te ao Māori, the Māori
world — access to language, culture, marae… tikanga… and resources.”
Sir Professor Mason Durie
“Ngāti Poroutanga is a critical part of the well-being of
any uri or descendant of Ngāti Porou. It’s not enough
to be rich and successful in the material world. We
want our people to be rich and connected to their Ngāti
Porou world!
Amohaere Houkamau,
former CE of Te Runanga o Ngāti Porou

7. 7
Some key objectives of wellbeing measurement for
Māori
• Te Kupenga gives a picture of the social, cultural, and economic
wellbeing of Māori people in New Zealand, including information
from a Māori cultural perspective.
• Provides key statistics on four areas of Māori cultural wellbeing:
wairuatanga (spirituality), tikanga (customs and practices), Te reo Māori
(language), whanaungatanga (social connectedness)
• Recognises practices and wellbeing outcomes that are specific to Māori
culture.
• Key information needs are not just the wellbeing of the individual,
and household but also whanau (family/extended family),
community and environment

8. Te Kupenga: How is data used?
• Demographics
• Views and perceptions
• Paid work
• Standard of living
• Health
• Trust, Crime, Discrimination
• Civic participation
• Kaitiakitanga
• Whānau
• Unpaid work
• Tikanga tūturu tūrangawaewae
• Te reo Māori
• Tikanga hou
• Housing (from Census)

9. 9

10. Māori people and the natural environment;
Why health of the environment is important to Māori wellbeing

11. What are the influences at play that bring people
together to create another generation?
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Category 1 Category 2 Category 3 Category 4
Chart Title
Series 1 Series 2 Series 3
Ngā Atua
(environmental influences)

12. Te Kupenga 2018 results
text text text text text
text
text
text

14. Te Kupenga: How data is used – an example
Using the Te Kupenga 2018 release to understand housing wellbeing
• The connection of Māori adults to tīpuna marae as tūrangawaewae – (Ahurea
Māori module)
• The role of both the ‘home’ (residence) and returning ‘home’ (rohe) in
learning, speaking and retaining Te reo Māori – (Te reo Māori module)
• The concept of whānau (as opposed to the concept of ‘household’ which
forms the basis of several other surveys) – (Whānau module)
• The importance of being in, interacting with, and caring for environments
beyond the physical house, and the ability to carry out activities such as māra
kai – (Kaitiakitanga module)

15. 15
Some Te Kupenga concepts also included in
GSS
• Family and whanau wellbeing
• Where zero means extremely badly and ten means extremely well, how would you
rate how your family is doing these days? Your 'family' is the group of people you
think of as your family.
• Family/whanau is self defined
• – ask separately who is included, e.g. ‘parents, siblings and children’; grandparents or
grandchildren, aunts, uncles,cousins or other inlaws; and close friends or other
people.
• How well are you able to speak te reo Māori in day-to-day conversation?
• Environment: how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with state of:
• Lakes, rivers, harbours, oceans, and coastlines
• Green spaces, forests, nature reserves, and native bush in your local area

16. 16
Family/whanau wellbeing also important for
other groups such as Pacific people

17. Questions?