March 15, 2012

Two for the price of one

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Roy Morgan have released their “State of the Nation” report, and the Herald has two stories. In the first

According to the Roy Morgan State of the Nation March 2012 report, there has been an upsurge in the number of New Zealanders who consider Maori culture to be an “essential component” of New Zealand society.

 If a change from 52% to 61% is an upsurge, then yes, but the upsurge happened from 2001-2005.  Since 2006, the proportion has been flat at over 60%, as is clear from the Herald’s own graph:

The other story says that most of NZ wealth is now  held by over-55s.

the 55-plus group has increased its share of net wealth from 43 per cent in 2002 to 52 per cent last year.

that is, by about a quarter

Their share of the population also rose in the same period, but only from 19.5 per cent to 24.7 per cent.

or, about a quarter.   Based on these numbers, in 2002, the average net wealth for people over 55 was about 2.2 times higher than the average for everyone over 14, and it’s now about 2.1 times higher.  Since the story goes on to say

The value of their own homes accounted for 56 per cent of their wealth a decade ago, and 70 per cent last year.

presumably the ratio for non-home wealth is even less favorable to the over-55s.

 

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Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »

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    Bad stats | Kiwiblog

    […] Stats Chat again exposes stories that do not match the data: Roy Morgan have released their “State of the Nation” report, and the Herald has twostories. In the first […]

    12 years ago