A presentation on poverty measurement in New Zealand was made by Bryan Perry, Ministry of Social Development, at the Second Peter Townsend Memorial Conference, Measuring Poverty: The State of the Art, in 2011.
The Ministry of Social Development in New Zealand has developed an Economic Living Standards Index (ELSI). This index is used to compare the material wellbeing of individuals and population subgroups but, in contrast to both the Townsend deprivation approach and the Mack and Lansley consensual method, the ELSI measures the full range of living standards rather than being just hardship-focused.
In 2008 the Ministry of Social Development commissioned a nationwide face-to-face survey of 5,000 households, the New Zealand Living Standards. The aims of the survey were to:
Full details of the New Zealand Living Standards Survey 2008 and the development of the ELSI can be found on the Ministry of Social Development website.