The New ZealandChild Poverty Crisis

An article by Ben Heather published by the Dominion Post raises awareness of the child poverty crisis. He states “A new rigorous report has found that ONE in FOUR Kiwi Children live in poverty, missing out on basic necessities like Medical health care, warm clothing and Food”.

He also states that around “265, 000 children can be defined as living in poverty based on the total income their families receive and their current living conditions. This is roughly One in Four of New Zealand Children, and that each year 7 to 8 children will die because of the poor living conditions they have to endure.

These statistics were quoted from the 120 paged “Child Poverty Monitor Technical Report” which was commissioned by the Children’s Commissioner Dr Russell Wills after the National Government rejected recommendations from the Child Poverty Action Group to start a comprehensive measure of Child Poverty.

Source

The Report was not funded by the National Government but instead “the commissioner recruited funding from the Wellington Charity J R McKenzie Trust and will now report on the health and well being of New Zealand’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged children, every year”.

Russell Wills Children’s Commissioner

Many of the statistics were found and carried out by Statistics New Zealand (the department of government in charge of carrying out the census) and by Colmar Brunton. Some of the data was also taken from the most recent census done last year and hospital records were collected to help analyse the conditions these children endured.

The target group was the New Zealand Children Population and 5000 adult respondents who had children were sampled. The sample was taken randomly and afterward was weighted against population projections. These 5000 respondents were each interviewed face to face and were asked questions based on their current living conditions including yearly income and their ability to establish a healthy living environment for their children. This was not the only survey taken.

Method24%

MOE = 1.4 %Their is a probable non-sampling error based on

Interviewer effects and how well and how willing the respondents answered the question.

Respondents were all taken from the census data and anyone who did not partake did not have a chance to be selected for the survey

Method

The claim that 1 in 4 or 25% of New Zealand children is reasonable as the actual percentage found was at 24% with a MOE of 1.4%, therefore the confidence interval is at 22.6%<P<25.4%

Claims

What was Missing?In the actual article, specific details about how

the “Child Poverty Technical Report” was taken and how surveys were completed was not specified. This information was found by sifting through the 120 pages of the report to find more links to the surveys used. Surveys done by Statistics New Zealand and Colmar Brunton. Each of the statistics stated in the article were produced by different surveys and finding the method to how these surveys were done was very difficult.

The claims made are reasonable and their is no possible hidden agenda that could have made this survey biased, but the way the article has “forgotten” to specify how the statistics were taken. The actual statistics themselves are very valid and reliable because they are based on multiple surveys that have been done over a period of 6 years (2007-2013). The report and the surveys were all used to identify how widespread child poverty is in New Zealand. It is a big problem and people need to realize this.

Conclusion