Suchergebnisse

How well have New Zealand households fared over a decade of extensive economic and social changes? This study compares household incomes in 1997/98 with household incomes in 1987/88, using the concept of "final income". Final income is a measure of the income accruing to households after adjusting for payments to, and benefits from, central government, whether these benefits are in cash or in kind. In particular, receipt of government health and education services is counted as adding to a household's income, and payment of consumption taxes is counted as taking away from a household's income. In all income deciles, the real final incomes of households were, on average, at least the same in 1997/98 as they were in 1987/88, and in most cases had increased. Government intervention, through taxes, cash benefits and social services, has maintained the incomes of less well-off households over a period of upheaval in New Zealand.

The NZ Treasury is currently engaged in a project to identify cost-effective interventions to improve outcomes for children and young adults in order to maximise the value of government expenditures across the social sector. The central aim of this paper is to provide an empirically-robust framework to compare intervention across a range of social sectors. There are two key components to the framework. The first is a life-course view of child development that emphasises that experiences and influences in childhood can affect well-being throughout life. The second component involves viewing social expenditures as investments addressed at achieving particular outcomes, typically directed at enhancing well-being. The paper presents evidence from a review of the literature on how the process and experiences of childhood have a later impact on wellbeing; how child development and outcomes are influenced by individual, family and communal factors and how risk and resilience can be used to indicate that an individual is at increased or decreased risk of negative outcomes. Case studies of youth suicide, teenage pregnancy, educational underachievement and youth inactivity provide evidence about what interventions work using key empirical findings from the literature.