1 in 6 New Zealanders are disabled

An estimated 17 percent of people living in New Zealand households were disabled in 2023, according to figures released by Stats NZ today.

New data from the 2023 Household Disability Survey (HDS) found 10 percent of children (98,000) and 18 percent of adults (753,000) were disabled. In total, 851,000 people (17 percent) were disabled.

The 2023 HDS used questions based on those developed by the Washington Group on Disability Statistics (WG). The WG’s work is supported by the United Nations Statistical Commission to improve statistics about disabled people. Shorter versions of the WG question sets are used in other social surveys in New Zealand. This is the first time the HDS has used questions based on those developed by the WG to identify disabled people, which means that results can’t be compared with those from previous disability surveys.