Almost a quarter of young Kiwis struggling with mental health – report

Nearly one in four young adults are suffering from high levels of anxiety, fatigue and depression, according to the Salvation Army’s 2023 State of the Nation report.

Drawn from publicly available statistics and data, the report provides a snapshot of how New Zealand is doing, including some positive progress in the housing crisis, high levels of employment, and declining levels of child poverty.

However, it highlights vulnerabilities among youth following the Covid-19 pandemic – especially in ethnic minorities.

Of particular concern is a sharp increase in the proportion of young people aged 15 to 24 reporting high levels of psychological distress, including anxiety, fatigue or depression.

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In just two years, the proportion has jumped from 11.1% in 2020 to 23.6%, with Māori and Pasifika experiencing higher rates than European or Asian people.

The report also noted a 40% rise in the number of children under 15 being injured in violent assaults in the past five years.

Youths aged 15 to 19 experienced a similar rise, and the number of sexual assault victims was up 31.5% compared to five years ago.

“Based on these figures, our country has become a much less safe place for children and young people over the past five years,” the report states.

While it praised efforts to reduce child poverty, with 2021 figures showing a decrease, the report found poverty levels were still too high, with almost one four Pacific children were living in material hardship.

“Crucial to reducing poverty is lifting incomes for the nearly one in five children who live in households relying on welfare benefits.”

“Looking to the future, we need to ensure that the costs of what some describe as an attempt to engineer a recession, are not borne by the most marginalised people we work with – people on low incomes, Māori, Pasifika,” Salvation Army social policy and parliamentary unit director Lt-Colonel Ian Hutson said.

The report also canvassed several other areas, including:

Work and Income

Low migration during the Covid-19 pandemic has proven golden for jobseekers with unemployment at a record low, although the report states the employment market remains “disturbingly ineffective” at finding work for young people and Māori and Pasifika.

The unemployment rate in September 2022 was 6.8% for Māori and 6.4% for Pacific workers – more than twice as high as Asian and European populations.

Meanwhile, the gender pay gap remains as wide as it was a decade ago at 9.2%, with the 2022 median pay for women being $28 per hour – $2.85 less than for men at $30.85.

Despite soaring inflation, the report found average weekly earnings for all employees managed to keep pace with inflation in the year to September 2022, rising to $1294.50 – an increase of 8.9% compared with inflation of 7.2%.

However, the total value of hardship payments made by Work and Income to households needing extra support in the year to December 2022 was up 9% – close to $1 billion.

Financial disparity was greater in ethnic households, with one in five Pacific households reporting having not enough money. Māori households were twice as likely as European or Asian households to be trying to survive on insufficient resources.

Housing

With only a 1500 population growth to June 2022, due to border closures, there is hope a substantial impact will be made in New Zealand’s housing shortage, with over 50,000 new dwelling consents granted.

However, urgent housing continues to be problematic in the Bay of Plenty, Central and Taranaki regions, the report says.

Although the number of people on the social housing register appears to have decreased in 2022, the report urges caution with many families moving to private accommodation because of the lack of social or transitional options. Those families often incur major debts and end up “bouncing” back into social housing options.

Elsewhere, housing, consumer and credit card debt increased in the nine months from September 2021, with cost of living and inflation dominating financial wellbeing concerns.

Crime and punishment

Family violence continues to be a major issue in New Zealand families, with the number of family harm incidents reported to police almost doubling since 2017.

Police figures show over 67% of family violence offenders reoffend, with Māori representing 51.5% of all family harm incidents, followed by Europeans on 32.3%.

There was a 5.2% increase in family harm investigations in 2022 compared to the previous year, leading the Salvation Army to comment on the “concerning trends” of an increase in the levels of family harm and the severity of the incidents.

Social hazards

While Covid-19 lockdowns contributed to a rise in alcohol consumption in wealthy neighbourhoods, hazardous drinking has decreased significantly for more deprived areas.

However, that trend does not cross over every ethnicity, with one in every three Māori adults classified as a hazardous drinker.

Drugs continue to contribute to social harm, with over 53% of all drug offence charges related to methamphetamine.

Wastewater testing shows the detection of meth has grown steadily since March 2021 and annual consumption levels in the year to June 2022 were likely higher than in previous years. Ecstasy has followed a similar trend.

It’s estimated the 16.7kg of meth consumed in the June quarter of 2022 equated to $18.5 million in social harm per week in the same month.

Gambling also causes significant harm to the community, with more spent on all forms of gambling apart from casino gambling in 2020-21 than before the pandemic.

Total gambling expenditure has steadily increased in seven years, reaching a new high of over $2.6b in 2020-21 – a 34% increase since 2010.

“The surge in pokie gambling is particularly worrying since it is proven to be the most harmful form of gambling in our country,” the report states.