The close relationship between Australia and New Zealand goes back much further, with people moving freely across since colonial times.
Integration has increased over the past three decades, with trade, investment and people movement yielding benefits for both countries. The aim of this project is
to compare & draw insights from the chosen few sustainable development goals (SDG) for both counties – Australia and New Zealand.
SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
3.3 By 2030, end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases, and other communicable diseases.
The current COVID-19 pandemic has shown the importance of public health. While progress in reproductive health, maternal, health and child health has been made globally, these successes could be reversed. Moreover, the general lack of data still makes it difficult to understand the true impact of certain illnesses.
Australia has beaten AIDS but HIV continues to spread. More than 1,000 new HIV infections are diagnosed each year meaning that HIV prevention remains a public health challenge. The number of newly infected, adults and children with HIV - as shown in Figure 1 for both Australia and New Zealand.
New Zealand on the other hand continues to be a world leader in their response to infectious disease. There is a decline among cases acquired in New Zealand and the country remains on a path to ending local HIV transmission.
SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
3.8 Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality, and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.
When we compare the population increase to Europe, the numbers feel significant but when we compare this with India, increase in population compares very small.
Why does population ageing matter to the budget and the economy? Australians’ average life expectancy is among the longest in the world. Population ageing is often thought of as a distant challenge for the economy and the budget. While it is true that ageing is a long-term process and the financial costs accumulate over time, Australia is in the midst of a particularly significant phase of demographic change.
Australia is not alone in addressing the implications of population ageing. New Zealand has an ageing population too. This is one of the demographic trends that characterize recent changes in New Zealand’s population structure. The composition of New Zealand’s and Australia’s population is changing, with a widening at the top in the older age groups.
SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
5.5 Ensure women’s full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision making in political, economic, and public life.
Over the last decade there has been a marked increase in interest in what has been labelled the gender gap, both in business and politics. New Zealand is leading – the index measures how laws and regulations affect women’s economic opportunity. Overall scores are calculated by taking the average score of each of the eight areas (Going Places, Starting a Job, Getting Paid, Getting Married, Having Children, Running a Business, Managing Assets and Getting a Pension), with 100 representing the highest possible score.
In the decision-making arenas of politics, there has always been a gender gap. This is evident for Australia and New Zealand both. An overall positive trend with Australia and New Zealand leading in representation, we can do better.
The total number of parliament seats in Australia is 227 and New Zealand 120. Women represent in the median 27% for the last 15 years in Australia and 34% for New Zealand as shown in figure below.
SDG 8: Goal 8. Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all.
8.5 By 2030, achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all women and men, including for young people and persons with disabilities, and equal pay for work of equal value.
To assess the health of Australia and New Zealand economy, we are looking at the GDP per person employed. GDP per person employed is gross domestic product (GDP) divided by total employment in the economy.
In 2020, Australia’s GDP per person employed was 99,569 and for New Zealand it was 79,299. The difference in GDP per capita in combination with the disparity in total GDP and total population shows that despite the countries' shared history power levels are not equal. Although, New Zealand's GDP per capita has been growing during the past years, its growth has been at a lower rate. While this seems to be evidently in favor of Australia the next visualization will draw a different picture.
The scatterplot below shows two varying developments of employment. On the one hand, New Zealand's lower GDP growth per capita coincides with higher rates of employment. On the other hand, the data for Australia shows the opposite effect. In this case, higher GDP per capita coincide with lower rates of employment. As a result, this may illustrate a more unequal society where fewer people have a job but earn significantly more.
What does the Youth Unemployment rate looks like post pandemic? First of all, youth unemployment seems to be higher in New Zealand on average, however this rate is predominantly driven by the years after the Financial Crisis. Interestingly, this collapse of the world economy did not have such a negative effect on youth unemployment in Australia.
Moreover, due to the Covid-19 pandemic the unemployment rate in both countries has gone up regardless of the sex. However, the trend has clearly been favouring New Zealand with significant decreases in youth unemployment until the pandemic outbreak.
Examining the differences in gender more closely, it becomes clear that youth unemployment affects women in New Zealand more frequently than men. While in Australia, rates of male youth unemployment are higher across all years, in New Zealand almost exactly the opposite can be observed.
Summary: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015, provides a shared global blueprint for well-being, peace and prosperity for people. The World Bank's committment "to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic, and other leaders of society to shape global, regional, and industry agendas" has also been adopted by Australia and New Zealand. Although both countries have a close relationship, they show slight differences in their status of development depending on the SDG. In the report, the differences and similarities have been illustrated with an emphasis on Health, Economy and Gender Equality due to their importance in recent years. The outlook for both countries is positve, but challenges in the battle against HIV, the political participationof women in Australia, and significantly lower GDP per capita in New Zealand have to be overcome to achieve excellency in all Sustainable Development Goals.
Thank you for following the full story. What is your opinion on the current state of both countries? We would be happy to hear your opinion about it.