Disabled children still more likely to live in material hardship

On 20 February 2025, Stats NZ released Child Poverty Statistics external URL and Household income and housing costs statistics external URL for the year ending June 2024. We’ve summarised the data for disabled people below.

Around 1 in 5 disabled children live in poverty

Child poverty statistics external URL provides data on the number, prevalence rates, and characteristics of children living in low-income households including data for disabled children. These statistics are used to measure progress and assess compliance under the Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018.

As defined in the Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018, there are three primary measures of child poverty and six supplementary measures. The three primary measures are low-income households before housing costs, low-income households after housing costs, and households experiencing material hardship.

Data for the year ending June 2024 showed that:

• 14.2% of disabled children (17,200 disabled children) were estimated to be living in households with low income (less than 50 percent median equivalised disposable household income) before housing costs compared with 12.8% of non-disabled children (119,700 non-disabled children). These differences were not statistically significant.
• This increases to 18.6% of disabled children (22,700 disabled children) living in households with low income after deducting housing costs. This is similar to the rate for non-disabled children which was 17.6% (164,700 non-disabled children).
• There were an estimated 26,000 disabled children (21.0 percent) living in households with material hardship based on the DEP-17 index. This rate is significantly higher than the rate for non-disabled children (12.3 percent, 114,900 children).

There was no statistically significant change in poverty rates for disabled children for the three primary measures when comparing the year ended June 2024 with the previous year, or with the year ended June 2020, when disability information was first collected.

Disabled children and children living in disabled households are more likely to experience material hardship

There are no statistically significant differences between disabled children and non-disabled children for the income-based primary measures, however, these measures may not fully capture the experiences of disabled children and children in disabled households because they do not take into account additional costs that disabled households often face. For this reason, material hardship provides a more robust measure of poverty for disabled children and households as it captures information about families who are unable to meet basic needs because they cannot afford them.

The latest data show that disabled children were 1.7 times as likely to live in households with material hardship when compared with non-disabled children, and children in disabled households were 2.4 times as likely to live in households with material hardship, when compared to children in non-disabled households.

Disabled children were 1.9 times as likely to live in households with severe material hardship (defined as having a DEP-17 score of 9 or more) when compared with non-disabled children, and children in disabled households were 3.2 times as likely to live in households with severe material hardship, when compared to children in non-disabled households.

Median household equivalised disposable income lower for disabled households

Household income and housing costs statistics external URL includes additional data on household income, expenditure on housing costs, and household material standard of living.

Data for the year ending June 2024 showed that disabled people:

• Had lower median household equivalised disposable income than non-disabled people. ($41,918 compared with $55,218).
• Were more likely to live in a household with an equivalized disposable income in the lowest two income quintiles (the bottom 40 percent of the population) (56.6 percent compared with 37.6 percent for non-disabled people).
• Were less likely to live in a household with an equivalized disposable income in the highest income quintile (11.8 percent compared with 21.3 percent).

The release also includes data on disabled households (households where at least one person is disabled). The data shows:

• Median household equivalised disposable income was lower for disabled households than households with no disabled people ($45,693 compared with $56,485).
• 51 percent of disabled households sit within the bottom two annual household equivalised disposable income quintiles, compared with 36 percent of non-disabled households.
• Disabled households were less likely to sit within the highest income quintile than non-disabled households (12.9 percent and 22.7 percent, respectively).

About the data

• For an overview of how child poverty is measured see: How we measure child poverty | Stats NZ external URL
• The HES uses the Washington Group Enhanced Short Set (WGSS Enhanced) of questions to identify disabled adults, and questions based on the Washington Group/UNICEF Child Functioning Module (CFM) to identify disabled children. More specifically:
  • People aged 18 or over are disabled if they have serious difficulty with at least one of the following: seeing (even with glasses), hearing (even with hearing aids), walking, remembering or concentrating, washing or dressing, communicating, upper body strength, manual dexterity, anxiety, or depression.
  • People aged 5 to 17 are disabled if they have serious difficulty with at least one of the following: seeing (even with glasses), hearing (even with hearing aids), walking, feeding or dressing themselves, communicating, learning, remembering, concentrating, accepting change, controlling their own behaviour, making friends, anxiety, or depression.
  • People aged 2 to 4 are disabled if they have serious difficulty with at least one of the following: seeing (even with glasses), hearing (even with hearing aids), walking, manual dexterity, communicating, learning, playing or controlling their own behaviour.
  • Children under 2 years old are not assessed for disability.

Differences in the way disabled people are defined means that this data is not comparable with disability rates from the 2023 Household Disability Survey.

• The DEP-17 index external URL includes items such as:
  • going without fresh fruit or vegetables,
  • because of the cost having to put up with feeling cold,
  • to keep costs down unable to afford an unexpected $500 expense, without borrowing,
  • having to buy cheaper or less meat, because of the cost,
  • putting off doctor’s visits, to keep costs down.
• Household equivalised disposable income is household disposable income adjusted for the size and composition of the household.