Rising living costs are outpacing the pension, leaving some older women facing impossible choices, according to a report from Good Shepherd New Zealand, a charity helping women, girls and their families experiencing harm and hardship.

The organisation interviewed 13 older women last year, aged 57 to 83, living with housing stress or on low incomes. The report says that in every interview, the women spoke about the same underlying pressure – the growing discrepancy between the cost of living and NZ Superannuation.

Whether renting or owning, they needed to spend more than half their weekly income on housing “before they could think about food, power, transport or healthcare,” the recently released report says.

The ‘single person penalty’ – the additional costs of living alone, amplified their struggles.

Good Shepherd says the women were resorting to measures such as heating only one room and going to bed early to save power, but despite highly disciplined budgeting, they were still “stretched to the limit”. Eating nutritious food was also seen as increasingly out of reach.

While homeownership offers women stability, the report suggested it could also financially trap them.

“This stability came with financial pressures that were difficult to sustain on NZ Super alone,” the report says.

“Insurance, rates, maintenance, heating and unexpected repairs often exceeded what women could afford,” the report says.

With limited ability to earn extra income and significant barriers to borrowing on NZ Super, the women had almost no way to smooth these shocks or adapt their housing as their needs changed. 

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