• Ministerial foreword
• Chief Executive's preface
• Purpose of the social report
• Social wellbeing
• Social indicators
• Disaggregation of social report indicators
• Indicators for The Social Report 2006
• Structure of the report
• The future

Introduction

The Social Report 2006

The Social Report is an annual publication that monitors the wellbeing of New Zealanders.

The Social Report uses a set of statistical indicators to monitor trends across 10 "domains", or areas of people’s lives. Together these domains provide a picture of wellbeing and quality of life in New Zealand.

The Social Report 2006 is the fifth in the annual series. It builds on the social monitoring framework first established by The Social Report 2001 and uses the same outcome domains and indicators as last year’s report. This year’s report contains additional information on trends in social wellbeing since the mid-1980s.

The regional and territorial authority information provided for the first time last year has been updated in the regional section of this website. This regional information has also been published in companion books to The Social Report 2006 (The Social Report 2006 Regional Indicators). This year, in addition to providing the most recent data for regions and territorial authorities, we have included time series information where it is available. This will allow councils and others working locally to assess progress over time and to compare themselves with other regions. The regional information has become a core part of the social report and will continue to be updated regularly.