A boarding house is defined as a dwelling that is mainly intended for boarders, has lockable bedrooms that are rented by the room, has communal facilities, and can accommodate six or more boarders. Data about people living in boarding houses should be interpreted with care, as there were some issues with identifying and classifying dwellings in this category.

We counted 174 boarding houses in the 2013 Census. This is believed to be an undercount, due to the difficulties in identifying this type of dwelling. Some boarding houses can be suburban houses with no signage, or can look (or sound) like guest accommodation from the name. However, their purpose and standard of accommodation can be very different from guest accommodation.

Research has shown that the key reasons people live in boarding houses include a lack of affordable housing (especially for un-partnered people), debt, and housing discrimination (Aspinall, 2013).

More than 2,500 people living in boarding houses in 2013

In 2013, 2,718 people lived in boarding houses across New Zealand. Two-thirds of these residents were male. Half of all boarding house residents lived in Auckland (1,362). Within Auckland, the highest numbers of people living in boarding houses were in the local boards of Mangere-Otahuhu (456), Albert-Eden (357), and Waitemata (207).

Outside Auckland, the highest numbers of people living in boarding houses were in Wellington city (348 people), Christchurch city (297), and Dunedin city (237).

Boarding house residents most likely to be aged 30–64 years

More than half of the residents in boarding houses were aged 30–64 years (57.6 percent), which was higher than the proportion of New Zealand’s population in this age group (45.4 percent). Almost one-third of the people who lived in boarding houses were aged 15–29 years (30.7 percent), again higher than the proportion of the general population in this age group (19.9 percent). There were also 126 people aged under 15 years living in boarding houses, with more than half of them living in Auckland.

Figure 9

Higher proportions of Māori, Pacific peoples, and Asian ethnic groups in boarding houses

A higher proportion of boarding house residents in 2013 identified with the Māori, Pacific peoples, or Asian ethnic groups, compared with the proportions of these ethnicities in the general population. The largest differences were for people identifying as Pacific peoples or Asian.

The percentage of people identifying as European was much lower than in the total population.

Figure 10

Around half of boarding house residents have lived there less than one year

In 2013, around half of boarding house residents (52.4 percent) had lived there for less than one year. A further 30.7 percent had lived there for one to four years.

Figure 11

Higher percentage of boarding house residents unemployed

In 2013, boarding house residents were more likely to be unemployed (14.4 percent) than were people in the total New Zealand population (4.8 percent).

More than half of those aged 15 years and over who lived in a boarding house were employed, with 38.2 percent employed full-time.

Figure 12

The labour force characteristics of people in boarding houses has changed over time. In 2013, a higher proportion were in the labour force (ie either employed or looking for work) than in 2006.

There may also be a regional effect, for example, people in Christchurch boarding houses had higher rates of full-time employment than in other cities. In addition, pressure on accommodation in Christchurch after the earthquakes has resulted in increased demand for boarding house accommodation by people on higher incomes than previously (Goodyear, 2014).

Be cautious when analysing the time series data, as there have been some changes in the way dwelling types have been enumerated over time.

Income of boarding house residents lower

Figure 13

The income distribution of boarding house residents was quite different, with higher proportions of people on relatively lower incomes than in the general population. A high percentage of people in boarding houses did not state their income in 2013 (22.2 percent), so this data may not be completely representative of the income levels of people living in boarding houses.

In 2013, the most common source of income for people who lived in boarding houses was wages, salaries, commissions, bonuses (54.6 percent). This increased from 43.2 percent in 2006, and supports the finding that more people who lived in boarding houses were in the labour force than previously.

Figure 14

The next-most common sources of income in 2013 were the unemployment benefit (14.9 percent) and the sickness benefit (13.2 percent). The percentage of boarding house residents receiving an invalids benefit fell by more than half between 2006 and 2013.

4 in 5 boarding house residents not partnered

Most boarding house residents were not partnered (83.0 percent). This figure was much higher than that for the total New Zealand population, of whom 39.4 percent were not partnered.