New Zealanders have their hopes up for 2021

More than a million New Zealanders think their lives will be better in the coming year.

New research finds

• 31% of adults (around 1,114,500 people) think their lives will be better.
• 19% (around  665,000 people) think their lives will be worse.
• 44% (around 1,592,700) think their lives will be the same.

Horizon Research, which provides the results from a December 2020 survey of 1,595 adults nationwide, says Kiwis are feeling more positive overall, compared with the poorer financial position many say their households experienced in the past year.

Some 1,144,000 million adults (33%) said their households became financially worse off in the past year, while 16% said they were better off.

Now, looking to the coming year the numbers “flip”, with 31% expecting their lives will be better.

The regions in which the largest numbers said their households’ finances had worsened in the past year have the highest numbers saying their lives will be better this year:

Hopes for better lives are highest in Northland (45%, compared with 31% nationwide), Canterbury 37% and Auckland (32%).

“Where they feel hardest hit financially, they also feel most optimistic about their lives becoming better, rather than worse, in the coming year,” Horizon’s Principal, Graeme Colman says.

Among  technical, mechanical and skilled workers 42% think their lives will be better and 34% of business managers, proprietors and self employed are feeling more positive than adults overall.

Among homemakers, 28% think their lives will get better, 24% worse. Students are also more positive than negative (35% better, 49% the same and 12% worse).

Horizon says there has also been a surge in optimism about the year ahead among those living in households with extended families, or ones with single parents with one or two children at home. These households most report worsening household finances over the past year.

In  the coming year 42% of those in extended families think their lives will get better (5% worse) and 24%  of those in single parent households with one or two children at home think their lives will be better (17% worse).

However, among those single-parent households with three or more children at home the coming year still looks bleak: 32% expect their lives will be worse, 21% better.

The most optimistic are those flatting or boarding and not living at home: 47% say their lives will be better, 14% worse.

Data is from a December 2020 Horizon survey of 1,595 adults nationwide, representing the 18+ population at the last census. At a 95% confidence level, the maximum margin of error on the overall sample is +/- 2.5%.

For further information please contact

Graeme Colman, Principal, Horizon Research Limited, telephone 021 848 576, email gcolman@horizonresearch.co.nz