Home, heart and health important to New Zealanders’ wellbeing

Today Bank of New Zealand shared its first findings from the New Zealand Wellbeing Index PDF 332KB. When it comes to New Zealanders’ sense of wellbeing, Kiwis rate their home, heart, health and wealth as factors that have the most impact on a positive sense of wellbeing.

“Our Wellbeing Index is a great snapshot of how New Zealanders are feeling about themselves and their lives,” says BNZ CEO Angie Mentis. “This new Index provides a benchmark for wellbeing updates that we’ll be producing quarterly.”

“We need to go beyond financial measures when looking at how New Zealanders and the communities they live in are doing,” says Ms Mentis. 

BNZ’s first Wellbeing Index reveals the things New Zealanders rate most highly when thinking about their wellbeing:

• The home they live in +61%
• Their sense of personal safety +58%
• Family and personal relationships +58%
• Standard of living +57%
• Feeling part of the local community +46%

The Index also reaffirms that Kiwis rate New Zealand as a great place to live and overall, they say they enjoy relatively high levels of personal wellbeing, coming in at 68.4 points out of the possible 100 points on the Index. This is higher than Australians who rated themselves (64.6 points in Q3 2018).

The BNZ Wellbeing Index also reveals Kiwis owning and living in their own home have higher wellbeing ratings than people who are renting (owners 72 points with renters 64.3 points).

Here are some other interesting Wellbeing highlights:

• Over 50s (74.2) scored higher than 18-29 year olds (62.3) and 30-49 year olds (67.6)
• People who live in a two-person household (71.7) rated highly
• Those with a household income of over $100,000 p.a. (71.6)

Geographical breakdowns are available too:

• Cantabrians lead the way in overall wellbeing with a score of 70.1
• Aucklanders lead the way for life satisfaction scoring 70.3 on that measure
• Gisborne/Hawke’s Bay lead the way for happiness on 71.5