The Gap in the Subjective Wellbeing of Māori and New Zealand Europeans Widened Between 2005 and 2009

We compared the self-reported subjective wellbeing of Māori and New Zealand (NZ) Europeans in two NZ national postal samples. The first sample was collected in 2005 before the global financial crisis of 2007/2010. The second was collected in 2009 while the crisis was ongoing. Both samples contained large and arguably representative samples of the indigenous peoples of NZ, Māori (Ns = 289 and 964) as well as the now-majority group, NZ Europeans (Ns = 2,769 and 4,073). NZ Europeans’ scores on the Personal Wellbeing Index (PWI) were near-identical across the 2005 and 2009 samples. However, Māori, who were already lower than NZ Europeans on the PWI in 2005, showed a further decrease in 2009. We argue that this gap in wellbeing widened because material advantages experienced by NZ Europeans as a social group provides a systemic buffer which protects their personal wellbeing from the impact of economic privation. Māori, who had already experienced systemic disadvantage, were not privileged with this buffer, and thus, the effects of the 2007/2010 global financial crisis impacted their personal wellbeing to a greater extent.