Our wellbeing throughout the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper is part of a series of detailed background papers designed to support the Treasury’s first Wellbeing Report Te Tai Waiora: Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand 2022. This paper uses the 2021 Living Standards Framework to review evidence about changes in New Zealanders’ wellbeing from the arrival of COVID-19 in early 2020 through to the first quarter of 2022. This paper provides a high-level overview of the empirical evidence across a wide set of wellbeing indicators. Readers are encouraged to review more detailed reports published by other agencies, which we cite throughout. It is important to note that the pandemic has not played out in a vacuum. The indicators examined in this paper will have been influenced by a range of factors (such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine). For this reason, we generally refrain from seeking to attribute shifts in wellbeing indicators to either the virus or New Zealand’s response. The paper also does not include discussion of counter-factual scenarios or policy prescriptions. Instead, this paper explores recent data to describe: observed trends in New Zealanders’ wellbeing over the period from COVID-19’s arrival in New Zealand in early 2020 through to the first quarter of 2022 emerging observable evidence or potential leading indicators of longer-term impacts on New Zealanders’ wellbeing.