Mind & Matters
Understanding the hearts and minds of Kiwis.
Monthly insights designed to help you better understand public sentiment, from macro trends to behaviours and attitudes towards key interest areas. Brought to you by Perceptive and Sapien Research.
Hope and optimism are returning (+2% on February).
Emotions
More New Zealanders are cutting back on spending (6% increase in March).
Cost of living
Personal financial situation remains #1 factor impacting households and has risen to 52% (+4% since February).
Finances
Released 18 April 2024
Positive emotions are starting to creep back up for New Zealanders as hope and optimism both increased by 2% since February. Alongside these positive emotions is a corresponding decline in New Zealanders feeling anxious (-2% since February).
When looking at the differences between males and females, females are still more likely to have experienced negative emotions than men (82% of women versus 63% of men indicated a negative in March). Similarly, those aged between 30-39 are most likely to express a negative (79% in March) and to have felt stressed and angry (59% and 30% respectively). On the other hand, those over 65 years old remain the most likely to have experienced positive emotions (77% in March) and are most likely to feel optimistic (51%).
Looking forward to the next 12 months, most New Zealanders expect things to stay the same (47% March). However, the proportion of New Zealanders who expect things to get worse has increased by 2% since February, corresponding with a 2% decrease in those who expect things to get better.
Those aged under 40 are more likely to believe things will improve (48% in March). In contrast, those aged over 60 are the most likely to believe things will get worse (25% in March).
Most New Zealanders feel the country is heading towards the wrong direction (57%), corresponding with a 3% decrease in the proportion of those who think it’s going in the right direction. Those in the North Island continue being more positive than those in the South Island (45% right direction compared to 33% South Island). This negative feeling is also still strongest among females (62% versus 48% males) and those who are single and living alone/with friends.
These findings echo recent opinion polls1 around support for the current Government, indicating the new Government honeymoon period is over and people are less positive about them now.
In March, the three main factors that impacted New Zealanders’ households the most remained the same, and have all increased since February:
This may go some way to explaining why New Zealanders’ financial situation continues to be the number one factor impacting their households, followed by the NZ economy.
1. Kitchen, R. 'New pool shows drop in support for National and ACT', The Post, www.thepost.co.nz, 9 April 2024.
Quarterly dips on issues affecting New Zealanders
Mind & Matters is designed to help business and leaders better understand public sentiment. From macro trends to behaviours and attitudes towards key interest areas, such as such as job security, personal finance, mental health, the environment and more, Mind & Matters is your comprehensive check-in on the state-of-mind of the New Zealand public.
In April 2020, in the midst of a pandemic lockdown, Perceptive and Sapien built the first Covid-19 Tracker to help businesses and leaders better understand the hearts and minds of Kiwis as we experienced this unprecedented event.
Fast forward to 2023 and the world—and New Zealand—continues to experience change on multiple fronts, from rising inflation to the rise of eCommerce and generative AI. With this in mind, Perceptive and Sapien have taken the best of our Covid-19 tracker produce this comprehensive tracker that explores what Kiwis think, feel and believe in relation to some of the most topical and challenging issues of today.
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