The aim is to model NZ society with an emphasis on the impact of personal and household resources in helping individuals to achieve valued social goals such as doing well at school, getting a job, and enjoying a good standard of living.
To do this, we construct a dynamic discrete-time microsimulation model of the NZ population over the period 1981 to 2006, using NZ Longitudinal Census data (produced by Statistics NZ) as the source for a starting sample as well as for statistical estimation to inform subsequent simulation. Supplementary official data are used to account for population changes over time."),
This computer model (constituting a ‘social laboratory’) can then be used to undertake projections - what would NZ look like in the future? - and scenario testing - what if features of NZ society were different or were changed somehow? These virtual experiments can address real questions of either scientific or policy significance.
We ask such pertinent questions here in a series of scenarios the results for which can be interrogated and visualised via this Shiny app, an accompaniment to our book “Simulating Societal Change - Counterfactual Modelling for Social and Policy Inquiry” (Springer).
The results in this shiny application are not official statistics They have been created for research purposes from the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), managed by Statistics New Zealand.
The opinions, findings, recommendations, and conclusions expressed in this shiny application are those of the author(s), not Statistics NZ.
Access to the anonymised data used in this study was provided by Statistics NZ under the security and confidentiality provisions of the Statistics Act 1975. Only people authorised by the Statistics Act 1975 are allowed to see data about a particular person, household, business, or organisation, and the results in this shiny application have been confidentialised to protect these groups from identification and to keep their data safe.
Careful consideration has been given to the privacy, security, and confidentiality issues associated with using administrative and survey data in the IDI. Further detail can be found in the Privacy impact assessment for the Integrated Data Infrastructure available from www.stats.govt.nz.
Davis, P., Lay-Yee, R., Chang, K., von Randow, M., Milne, B. (2017) Shiny application: New Zealand as a Social Laboratory. https://compassnz.shinyapps.io/SociaLabShiny/