Stats NZ released the first detailed tranche of 2023 Census data today, including detail on individuals and households down to a small area level. In this article, we share ten insights from the 2023 Census, following our June article which covered the high-level insights from the first tranche.

We are currently working to ingest the latest release of Census 2023 data into our Census module of the Regional Economic Profile. We will provide an email update when this data is available in the very near future.

The 2023 Census was New Zealand’s first full-coverage national record of the Rainbow/LGBTIQ+ community, including those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, intersex, or have other minority genders or sexual identities. In the 2023 Census, 4.9% of the population aged 15 years of older belonged to the Rainbow population. This proportion is highest in cities and lowest in provincial and rural areas, ranging from 11.3% in Wellington City to 2.3% in Kaikoura District.

These new figures provide a much richer understanding that previous regional-only data, made available from the General Social Survey (GSS). However, the broad trends are very similar, and we have previously outlined these preliminary trends from the GSS here.

New Zealand’s population continues to become increasingly ethnically diverse, with the share of the population identifying with European ethnicity easing from 74% in 2013, to 70% in 2018 and now 68% in 2023. Since 2018, our Māori population has increased by 14%, Pacific Peoples by 16%, and Asian by 22%.

Within our Pacific Peoples population, Samoan remains the largest ethnic group, with a population of 213,069 in 2023, followed by Tongan (97,824) and Cook Island Māori (94,176). Fijian was our fastest growing Pacific ethnicity, up 27% from 2018, numbering 25,038 in 2023.

Within the fast-growing Asian population, Filipino has been the fastest growing ethnic group, rising 49% to 108,297 people in 2023. In 2018, Chinese was the largest single Asian ethnicity in New Zealand, but was overtaken by Indian in 2023. In 2023, 279,039 people identified with Chinese ethnicity, and 292,092 with Indian ethnicity.

Iwi Māori data from the 2018 Census was of particularly low quality, so 2023 represents our first decent read of Māori descent and iwi affiliation since 2013. The population of Māori descent rose 23% between 2013 and 2023. Ngāpuhi (184,470 in 2023), Ngāti Porou (102,480) and Ngāi Tahu (84,969) remain our three largest iwi, the same as in 2013.

The majority of New Zealand’s population identified as having no religion, for the first time, in 2023. The proportion of the population with no religion has been rising for some time, from 42% in 2013, to 48% in 2018, and 52% in 2023. New Zealand’s least religious regions are Otago (60%) and Nelson-Tasman (60%), and the most religious region is Auckland (45%).

Smoking of tobacco cigarettes has fallen significantly, with just 7.7% of the population smoking daily in 2023, down from 13% in 2018. Sitting beneath this decrease was a 22% increase in the number of ex-smokers (people that had previously smoked regularly, but no longer do) and a 12% increase in the number of people who have never smoked regularly. The Census doesn’t gather further information about why people are making these changes, but it seems likely that rising excise taxes on tobacco cigarettes and the rapid uptake of vaping have played a role.

New Zealand’s home ownership rate improved marginally between 2018 and 2023, from 64.5% to 66.0% (see Chart 1). Although this is a small increase, it is an encouraging turn, following successive declines in the home ownership rate in every Census from 1996 to 2018.

We expect that this slight rise in the homeownership rate has been driven by a period of better relative affordability through 2019, 2020, and 2021, when interest rates were lower and mortgage affordability was better. Higher levels of building will also have supported this outcome.

The 2018 Census introduced questions about mould and dampness in dwellings, with these questions repeated in 2023. The proportion of occupied private dwellings that always or sometimes had mould (larger than an A4 sheet of paper) fell from 16.9% in 2018 to 14.0% in 2023. The proportion that was always or sometimes damp fell from 21.5% in 2018 to 18.1% in 2023. The use of heat pumps for heating rose from 47.3% in 2018 to 66.8% in 2023.

Since 2018, the Government has introduced healthy homes standards for private rental properties, requiring heating (particularly heat pumps), draught stopping, moisture barriers, and ventilation. These standards are being progressively applied over 2019 to 2025, with new private sector tenancies being required to comply by July 2021. It seems likely that these standards have had some effect on the uptake of heat pumps for heating, as well as the reduced prevalence of dampness and mould in dwellings. The healthy homes standards will have had a direct impact on the rental stock, but also an indirect impact on the dwelling stock overall by raising awareness of solutions to improve dwellings for the health of occupants.

The occupancy rate of dwellings is a crucial piece of information which can only be gleaned from the Census. Between 2018 and 2023, several major changes occurred which affected dwelling occupancy in different ways – a cyclone in 2023 which saw homes inundated or otherwise inaccessible; an outright decline in Auckland’s population over 2021 and 2022 while New Zealand’s borders were shut; and widespread adoption of working from home practices affecting how holiday houses are used. Overall, the proportion of private dwellings which were empty on Census night rose from 10.2% in 2018 to 10.8% in 2023.

Census Day fell one month after Cyclone Gabrielle struck the North Island’s east coast. Although Census data collection in cyclone-affected areas were extended until the end of June 2023, the effect of the cyclone on households comes through clearly. The number of unoccupied dwellings in Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay Regions rose by 1,302 between 2018 and 2023, with the share of dwellings unoccupied rising from 8.9% to 9.8%.

Unoccupied dwellings in the Census are classed as being an ‘empty dwelling’ (with no usual residents, such as a holiday house or a vacant house for sale) or ‘residents away’ (when it is someone’s usual residence, but they were not home on Census night). Both ‘empty dwellings’ and ‘residents away’ rose 0.3% nationally between 2018 and 2023. However, holiday hotspots such as Thames-Coromandel, Marlborough, Mackenzie, Central Otago and Queenstown-Lakes, all saw a faster rise in ‘residents away’ than ‘empty dwellings’. This trend could reflect that holiday houses are increasingly being utilised as usual residences, as many people are able to work remotely post-pandemic.

Auckland’s population decline in 2021 and 2022 was unprecedented for the city. The city’s population overall recovered in 2023, but Waitemata Local Board, representing the central business district, still had a lower population in 2023 than 2020. The proportion of dwellings that were empty in Waitemata Local Board rose from 10.2% in 2018 to 14.8% in 2023.

Joined dwellings are becoming increasingly common across the country, with apartments and townhouses making up 49% of new dwelling consents in 2023, up from just 26% in 2018. This shift in how we build dwellings is starting to show through in the housing stock, with the proportion of occupied dwellings that are joined to another dwelling rising from 18% in 2018 to 26% in 2023.

The share of households with access to the internet continues to improve, from 77% in 2013, to 86% in 2018, and 90% in 2023. Internet access rates in 2023 ranged from 96% in Queenstown-Lakes, down to 80% in Buller (see Chart 2). Most cities and more urbanised areas recorded internet access for over 90% of households, with lower access rates in more provincial and rural areas.

Although the internet access rate improved, we weren’t surprised to see the proportion of household with access to a landline telephone halve, from 62.5% in 2018 to just 31.0% of households in 2023. We were somewhat gutted that tick-box for fax machines was dropped in 2023 – we’d like to know how many of the 214,554 households with a fax machine in 2018 are still using them!

The Census data release today includes the Census usually resident population (CURP), but the estimated resident population (ERP) a more preferred measure of the resident population as it is published annually and accounts for people who were not counted in the Census.

The ERP for 2024 will be released on the 25th of October 2024, and the ERP series will be revised by Stats NZ in early 2025 to incorporate the 2023 Census. We include an update on the 2024 ERP in our October newsletter, on the 30th of October.

We’ll be bringing the 2023 Census data released today into the Census module of our Regional Economic Profile over the coming days, and will be in touch with clients when it is ready to explore. The Census module has recently been rebuilt, featuring an easy-to-explore interface with sub-district data and mapping. If you have any questions about Census data for your area, please get in touch.