This report estimates the scale of persistent disadvantage in New Zealand across three domains, and examines who is more likely to experience it.

This final report from the New Zealand Productivity Commission's inquiry found that people experiencing disadvantage and those trying to support them are constrained by powerful system barriers. Barriers include siloed and fragmented government agencies and 'short-termism'. These barriers make it very hard for those experiencing persistent disadvantage to escape and can even make single-factor or...

As the gap between rich and poor in Australia widens, multi-generational disadvantage becomes entrenched. This corrodes the very foundations of liberal democracy, and threatens the capacity of government to provide equality of opportunity. This paper presents a liberal perspective of Australia’s productivity slowdown that recognises productivity growth is dependent also on equality of opportunity.

The New Zealand Productivity Commission engaged FrankAdvice to prepare this report setting out potential features of a learning system. The Commission intends to use this work to inform their findings and recommendations in relation to a stronger public management learning system.

This report assesses the national expansion of the ParentsNext pre-employment program from 2018 to 2021. The program targets early intervention support to disadvantaged parents with children under six, helping them identify and achieve education and employment goals, improve work readiness, and connect with local support services to reduce long-term welfare reliance. The evaluation uses a...