Literacy and Life Skills for Māori Adults: Results from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills (ALL) Survey

5. Income

The income quintiles⁹ for Māori adults based on the ALL dataset are:

Quintile 1 (lowest) : $0 – $11,000

Quintile 2 : $11,001 – $20,000

Quintile 3 : $20,001 – $32,000

Quintile 4 : $32,001 – $46,000

Quintile 5 (highest) : $46,001 and higher

This section discusses the distribution of skills by respondents’ income quintile amongst the adult Māori population.

Figures 5.1 to 5.5 show the distributions of each of prose literacy, document literacy, numeracy and problem solving skill by income quintile for Māori adults in New Zealand.

Overall Figures 5.1 to 5.5 indicate that:

• Māori adults in the highest income quintile had substantially higher skills than Māori adults with less income. More than half of Māori adults in the highest income quintile had level 3 or above prose and document literacy skills.
• Māori adults in the lower four income quintiles showed little difference in skills. This pattern differs from that of the general New Zealand population where the average skills are similar for the lowest two income quintiles but increase progressively across the middle and higher quintiles. This difference in pattern may reflect the overall lower incomes of Māori compared to the general population. For example, the top of quintile 3 for Māori is $32,000 compared with $39,000 for the general population.

1. The statistics for quintile 1 were of too poor quality to report.

Figure 5.4: Problem-solving level by income, ALL only

Note:

1. The statistics for quintiles 1 and 2 were of too poor quality to report.