To date, New Zealand government agencies have been unable to source comprehensive data about the veteran population as there is no complete record of those who have served in the defence forces and no way to identify them in administrative data.

The Social Wellbeing Agency worked with Veterans’ Affairs and the New Zealand Defence Force to identify the veteran population, using data from the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI). The primary objective was to identify veterans in the IDI and create a population dataset that could be used as the foundation for future research on veteran mental health and wellbeing outcomes.

Using the IDI, researchers constructed an indicator of veteran status, drawing together data from a range of datasets to identify a group of people who are likely to be veterans. This data contained information indicative of service in the defence force, including evidence of previous employment with the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF), stated occupation or industry of employment in surveys or other government records.

Key findings:

• Compared to the general population, veterans experienced fewer impairments before age 30, but more severe impairments from age 65. After age 65 most (75%) veterans were living with some impairment. Difficulty with hearing, walking, seeing, and remembering, were the most common impairments experienced by veterans.
• Many veterans were in stable employment. Almost half (49%) of working-aged veterans were employed continuously for the 24-month period over 2018 and 2019. However, one quarter of veterans had no employment income over the study period, 1.7 times higher than the rate for the general population.
• Compared to the general population, a considerably larger proportion of veterans worked in public order, safety and regulatory services, public administration, logistics and transport, manufacturing and air and space transport industries.