The Dynamic Deprivation Index: measuring relative socio-economic deprivation in NZ on a monthly basis

Abstract

The standard measures of relative socio-economic deprivation within New Zealand are the NZDEP studies and the NZ IMD. Although both sets of studies are extremely rigorous, high quality research outputs they are only able to provide a snapshot of the national distribution of relative socio-economic deprivation at fixed points in time. The inability to express deprivation levels as an extended and current time series means that not only are policy analysts and researchers working with outdated information, but also that it is often unfeasible to associate changes in deprivation levels to specific events or policy implementations. The Dynamic Deprivation Index (DDI) assigns a deprivation score and deprivation index to each area unit in New Zealand on a monthly basis. In this paper we look to describe the methodology behind the construction of the DDI and to validate the results therein. We argue that if public bodies were to make the data they hold more easily accessible, then there is no reason why New Zealand should not be able to benefit from a measure of socio-economic deprivation that combines the sophistication of the NZDEP studies or IMD with the contemporaneousness of the DDI. ARTICLE HISTORY

The geographic distribution of gaming machine proceeds in New Zealand

“…The meshblock and AU geographies (QGIS maps) and concordance with geographies for previous years can be found on the Statistics New Zealand website (2018a, 2018b). We take this opportunity to stress that, from the perspective of the current investigation, the difference between the 2013 and 2017AU boundaries is negligible (see Ward et al 2019 for further details).…”

“…Indeed, the DDI is seeded by the NZDEP13 study in the sense that the deprivation scores and deciles assigned to each AU in Mar13 by the DDI coincide exactly with the deprivation scores and deciles associated to each AU in the NZDEP13 study. For further information on the methodology and construction of the DDI see Ward et al (2019).…”

“…Recently, a more contemporaneous measure of socio-economic deprivation has been developed. The Dynamic Deprivation Index™ (DDI) (see Ward et al 2019), constructed by researchers at data science company DOT Loves Data (DOT), assigns a deprivation score and deprivation index to each AU in New Zealand each month from Mar13 onwards. However, evaluating the criterion validity of the DDI, i.e.…”

A comparison of the NZDep and New Zealand IMD indexes of socioeconomic deprivation

“…It will be important for future research to further identify and explore differences in the performance of NZDep and IMD and to compare these two indexes with the recently published Dynamic Deprivation Index (Ward et al 2019). Also, it would be useful for the authors of IMD to construct their index using only non-Census data sources and test how it performs in comparison to NZDep.…”

“…The first of these, the New Zealand Indices of Multiple Deprivation (IMD)based on the UK Index of Multiple Deprivation (Niggebrugge et al 2005;Noble et al 2006)was published by Exeter et al (2017). The second was the Dynamic Deprivation Index published by Ward et al (2019), which will be the subject of a future comparative study.…”