Summary

The eight areas asked about were: education or training, work, income, housing, physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, family relationships, and wider social connections.

• Wider social connections and work were the two areas where the largest proportions of 16- to 75-year-olds reported a very or slightly negative effect overall – a little more than 50 percent for both.
• Mental wellbeing and then physical wellbeing were next most negatively impacted. Income, education or training, and family relationships followed. Housing was least negatively affected at 11 percent.
• A third of people had a very negative effect overall in at least one of the eight areas, with work the highest (20%, where applicable).
• Work (15%, where applicable) and family relationships (14%) had the highest proportions reporting a positive effect overall from the pandemic.
• Younger people, aged 16 to 24 were much more likely than other age groups to report a negative effect overall on their education or training (61%). Over 90 percent of this age group were in education or training during the pandemic, including 82 percent studying for formal qualifications (school or tertiary). Those who had been engaged in formal education were much more likely to report both negative and positive effects on their education or training than those engaged only in non-formal training.

The report also compares the reported effect of the pandemic on each of the eight areas at the time of interview with the pandemic’s reported effect ‘overall’. It includes more detailed analysis of the impacts on education or training, and on work.

An appendix compares some New Zealand findings with those of Croatia, which was the only other country to include the questions on the impact of the pandemic in the Survey of Adult Skills.