Disability and activity limitations: 2023 Census provides information through the release of 52 new Aotearoa Data Explorer tables and a report Using data from the Household Disability Survey and the 2023 Census.
Disability and activity limitation statistics provide important insights about disabled people living in New Zealand. These statistics and insights are used by government agencies, service providers, and community groups to monitor the outcomes of disabled people compared with non-disabled people and to support the development of accessible services.
Activity limitations are measured in the census using the Washington Group Short Set on Functioning (WGSS). The WGSS asks about six basic activities that a person might have difficulty with: seeing, hearing, walking or climbing stairs, remembering or concentrating, washing all over or dressing, and communicating. A person can have more than one activity limitation and will be counted for each limitation they give as a response.
A person was classified as disabled in the 2023 Census if there was at least one of these everyday activities that they had a lot of difficulty with or could not do at all.
The census disabled population is not an official count of the disabled population. This is because the WGSS does not capture all disabled people. The census disability and activity limitations tables should be used to understand and compare outcomes for the disabled and non-disabled populations.
Household Disability Survey 2023 - findings, definitions, and design summary provides the official disability prevalence estimates.
52 new 2023 Census topic tables in Aotearoa Data Explorer
Disability indicator and activity limitations statistics from the census includes information relating to demographics, work and education, housing, and families and households.
Included in the Aotearoa Data Explorer release are:
- 36 disability indicator tables
- 16 activity limitations tables.
Find topic tables from the latest 2023 Census releases contains the tables in this release, as well as details about them.
New report released
Using data from the Household Disability Survey and the 2023 Census provides more information about how to use the 2023 Census disability and activity limitations data and the Household Disability Survey data.
This report includes information about both data sources, best practice guidance, and examples of using data from both sources together.
More data
Place and ethnic group summaries tool allows users to view and compare simple graphs and tables of data for local communities and New Zealand's ethnic groups. Additional activity limitations data is available via this tool.
Aotearoa Data Explorer - 2023 Census provides access to search and customise 2023 Census data tables and compare data against previous censuses.
Aotearoa Data Explorer user guide contains video tutorials and a user guide.
2023 Census product and release finder has a downloadable tool that contains details of all the tables published in this release, as well as other 2023 Census releases.
After downloading and opening the tool, select the 'Product and release finder' tab then click on the 'Product' filter and select 'Aotearoa Data Explorer' from the drop-down list.
2023 Census Totals by topic tables are now available in geospatial formats:
Definitions and metadata
Using a combined census model for the 2023 Census provides information about the methodology used for the 2023 Census.
Data quality in the 2023 Census provides information about the composition and quality of the 2023 Census dataset.
2023 Census of Population and Dwellings - Information by concepts (published) - DataInfo+ provides information about the variables and their quality.
Technical enquiries
Geoff Sullivan
04 931 4600
[email protected]
