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Health and Wealth WP 10/05

Appendix C (continued)

Health failures and self-rated health

Appendix Table 27 – Wave 2 self-rated health against health failures
  Without health failure With health failure
  Count Proportion Count Proportion
Excellent 920,100 0.4438 216,800 0.2981
Very Good 678,000 0.3271 209,300 0.2878
Good 375,100 0.1809 177,800 0.2445
Fair 84,500 0.0408 92,500 0.1272
Poor 15,300 0.0074 30,900 0.0425
Total 2,073,000 1     727,300 1    

Source: SoFIE Waves 1–3, OSMs, longitudinal weights, supplied by Statistics New Zealand

Of individuals with fair or poor self-rated health more than half suffered a health failure between Waves 2 and 3. Only 18% of those with excellent self-rated health suffered a health failure between Waves 2 and 3.

Health failures could be caused by injury or an illness lasting more than a week. Whether the health failure was caused by injury or illness was not considered in this analysis. Consideration of the difference between these two may be useful in further research.

Wealth and health failures

Appendix Table 28 – Net wealth percentiles – with and without health failures
Percentiles 5% 10% 25% Median 75% 90% 95%
Net wealth with failure ($) 600 2,560 16,070 74,210 186,000 335,000 493,000
Net wealth without failure ($) 800 3,130 18,700 80,920 197,300 395,800 632,550

Source: SoFIE Waves 1–3, OSMs, longitudinal weights, supplied by Statistics New Zealand

Note:

  1. These measures of net wealth have not had student loans offset against them.

For all percentiles, those who experienced a health failure have lower net wealth than those who did not experience a health failure. The difference between the net wealth of those who experienced a health failure and those who did not increases as the overall level of net wealth increases. This suggests that health failures are associated with lower net wealth. However, these results do not control for the possible effect of other variables.

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