• Telephone and internet access in the home
• Regular contact with family/friends
• Trust in others
• Loneliness
• Contact between young people and their parents

Loneliness

Relevance

Social contact is fundamentally important to people: humans are social creatures. Self-assessed loneliness is a proxy indicator of whether people are happy with the amount and quality of social contact they have. As well as being an undesirable state in itself, loneliness may also contribute to poor outcomes in other areas, including adverse health problems such as stress, anxiety or depression.

Current level

In 2006, 18 percent of New Zealanders reported feeling lonely during the last 12 months. Fifteen percent said they felt lonely sometimes, 2 percent said they were lonely most of the time and fewer than 1 percent said they always felt lonely. Feelings of isolation or loneliness are strongly associated with self-rated quality of life. Those who rated their quality of life as "extremely good" or "good" were far less likely to have felt isolated in the past 12 months (8 percent and 19 percent, respectively) than those who rated their quality of life as "poor" (60 percent).¹⁰⁵

Figure SC4.1 Proportion of people experiencing loneliness, 2006

Source: Quality of Life Survey 2006

Age differences

Loneliness is most prevalent among people aged 15–24 years, followed by those aged 25–49 years. Twenty-five percent of 15–24 year olds and 17 percent of those aged 25–49 years reported feeling lonely sometimes, most of the time, or always. Levels of loneliness were lower among those aged 50–64 years and 65 years and over (both 15 percent).

Figure SC4.2 Proportion of people experiencing loneliness, by age, 2006

Source: Quality of Life Survey 2006

Sex differences

Females (20 percent) were more likely than males (16 percent) to have reported feeling lonely during the last 12 months. Seventeen percent of females said they were lonely sometimes compared to 14 percent of males.

Ethnic differences

Europeans reported the lowest rate of loneliness with 16 percent reporting they were lonely sometimes, most of the time or always. Eighteen percent of Māori, 22 percent of people in the Other (excluding Asian) ethnic group and 23 percent of Pacific peoples reported they were sometimes, most of the time or always lonely. Asian peoples (27 percent) reported the highest rates of loneliness.

Socio-economic differences

Experiencing loneliness declines as personal income rises. People with personal incomes of $20,000 or less reported higher rates of loneliness than people with higher incomes: 24 percent said they felt lonely sometimes, most of the time or always in the past 12 months. This compares with a loneliness rate of 7 percent for those with a personal income over $70,000.

Figure SC4.3 Proportion of people experiencing loneliness, by personal income, 2006

Source: Quality of Life Survey 2006

Regional differences

People living in Manukau City had the highest reported incidence of loneliness with 21 percent reporting they felt lonely sometimes, most of the time or always. Those living in Dunedin had the lowest reported incidence of loneliness (12 percent).