Wellbeing data tracks the resilience of Cantabrians

Friday, 16 August 2019

Recovery has taken a long time, but Cantabrians have shown resilience, Statistics NZ's wellbeing figures show.

Resilient Cantabrians' level of overall life satisfaction remained undiminished throughout the earthquakes that shook the region, and the long recovery effort that followed, according to official wellbeing statistics.

It's a result that even perplexes Statistics NZ, which would have expected to see dips in the aftermath of a natural disaster.

As part of its Good Life Guide, Stuff scrutinised the wellbeing statistics, and noticed that in March 2009, Cantabrians scored roughly at the national average for subjective self-assessed overall life satisfaction, and they still did in 2011, and in 2013, in 2016, and again in 2018.

'The earthquakes haven't had large detrimental effects on our population,' said Ben Beaglehole, senior lecturer at the University of Otago Christchurch.

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'By and large people's insurance schemes worked pretty well, a lot of money got pumped into the city, and things are beginning to look okay.'

There may have been a survivorship boost that comes from people finding out how resilient they really were in the face of adversity.

'You can get strength through adversity,' Beaglehole said.

It may also be human nature to be resilient in the face of adversity, he said.

Surveys done by the now-disbanded Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority showed a relatively stable proportion of Cantabrians with a positive view of their overall wellbeing, even though immediate positive after-effects of surviving the earthquakes, such as a renewed appreciation for life, and pride at their ability to cope faded.

Community spirit: Volunteers clearing liquefaction.

'Going through adversity isn't the worst thing sometimes,' said Duane Major, whose home in Spreydon avoided major damage.

'It reminds us of our humanity.'

Major, who hit national fame for his part in organising the purchase of an iconic Abel Tasman beach, had seen both positive and negative wellbeing impacts on individuals in the aftermath of the earthquakes.

Registered professional surveyor, Adrian Cowie, with a robotic base station, while checking the levels of a crane gantry in a Woolston factory.

Adversity faced together by a community could also strengthen that community, he believed.

'In adversity the invisible threads of community pull tight.'

But the unfluctuating line of a headline statistic may obscure the experiences, negative and positive, of people in the population it measures.

Beaglehole said behind the statistics would be people who had seen their life satisfaction slip, but whose experience may be cancelled out in the headline figures by people who had experienced positive things in the aftermath of the earthquakes, or become enriched by them.

'Some people get very wealthy in times of war,' he said.

'Going through adversity isn't the worst thing sometimes,' says Duane Major. Major hit national fame for his part in organising the purchase of an iconic Abel Tasman beach.

'There's probably an exposure effect. The most highly impacted people who lost their houses, and never managed to sort out their insurance, will have suffered detrimental effects.'

Nearly a decade on, there are still many people whose homes have not been repaired, despite having had insurance cover.

'I'm dealing with people who are broken, suicidal, can't carry on with life, and they are not on their own,' said Adrian Cowie, a surveyor/civil engineer/planner who has been involved in over 100 battles homeowners have had with insurers and EQC.

They felt isolated and bullied by the insurers and government-owned EQC which were meant to protect them, Cowie said.

Other groups' wellbeing had been hit too.

Beaglehole studied the psychological impacts of the earthquakes on people with mental ill-health, and found they accessed more health services after the earthquakes.

But some Cantabrians' voices may have been lost to Stats NZ.

In the immediate aftermath of the earthquakes in Christchurch and Kaikoura, Stats NZ stopped interviewing in badly-hit areas, such as the Red Zone in Christchurch, said Rosemary Goodyear, a design analyst with Stats NZ.

It was both a matter of being sensitive to people's trauma, and also the difficulty and potential danger of continuing to conduct the face-to-face interviews from which the Wellbeing data is generated.

Children's voices were also not captured by in the wellbeing statistics as Stats NZ only interviews people aged 15 and over, said Goodyear, whose home was not badly damaged in the quake.

'The main impact has been on the mental health of my kids. It's impacted them quite significantly,' Goodyear said.

* This article is part of the Good Life Guide, an editorial project sponsored by Skoda. We have produced it independently, to the same standards applied to the rest of our journalism. Read more about our partnership content here