Working Paper 01/04 - Movements into and out of Child Poverty in New Zealand: Results from the Linked Income Supplement

This paper considers one dimension of the family environment facing children, that of income poverty. It is part of the Ministry of Social Development's research programme on family dynamics, which focuses on the link between family environment and child outcomes.

This project is the first to use the Linked Income Supplement (LIS) for analysis of income dynamics. The LIS tracks dwellings and people and enables changes to be observed in household disposable incomes over a year.

This paper found that:

• the chances of adults being observed in poverty are always lower than for children, regardless of the chosen poverty line
• New Zealand mobility patterns are broadly consistent with comparative overseas work, most closely approximating those of Britain
• the mobility of children into and out of poverty in New Zealand is reasonably high, but there is also significant poverty persistence
• labour market "trigger events" occur more frequently than demographic events and are more likely to affect child poverty rates.