New Zealanders are voting, playing sports and volunteering more: General Social Survey

The latest wellbeing statistics reveal New Zealanders' sporting, voting, and volunteering habits. Photo / 123rf

The latest wellbeing statistics reveal how often and how many New Zealanders play sports, vote in elections, and volunteer. However, data shows few of us are prepared for emergencies with food and plans in place.

The General Social Survey, carried out by Stats NZ, gauges people's assessments of their own lives, such as how satisfied they are, what activities people are engaged in, and what they care about.

More people voted in the 2020 general election than in the previous one, with 83.6 per cent of people casting their vote.

However, participation in local elections decreased. Local Government New Zealand says voter turnout for local elections is half that of a general election, equalling only four out of every 10 eligible voters.

A 2016 post-election survey conducted by Local Government New Zealand found just 39 per cent of those in the 18-24 cohort voted, a rate nearly half the average turnout rate.

Wellbeing data reveals people aged over 65 were the most likely age group to vote. Over one in ten people in this age group said they had voted in the previous general election, and a marginally smaller number voted in the 2019 local elections.

A higher proportion of women said they had voted in the general election than men.

Civic engagement did not end with elections, with wellbeing statistics showing about half of all New Zealanders had volunteered in the four weeks before the survey in 2021.

Those people who volunteered rated life as "more worthwhile" on average compared with those who did not.

Environmental volunteerism has grown in popularity, with the proportion of those increasing to one in ten people in 2021.

But volunteering for sports or recreational organisations was the most common way for people to give their time.

About three-quarters of people participated in an individual sport like walking, running or weight training in the four weeks before the survey.

Sportsmen were a larger group than sportswomen, with almost a third of men having participated in a sport compared to only a fifth of women.

While Kiwis are physically, politically and charitably active, less than half of people had enough water to last three days, and less than a third of people had an emergency plan in place. Most people, however, had enough food to last through a few days.