Quality of Life in Auckland, New Zealand
| Purchasing Power Index | 130.67 | Very High |
| Safety Index | 49.67 | Moderate |
| Health Care Index | 69.01 | High |
| Climate Index | 99.89 | Very High |
| Cost of Living Index | 63.03 | Moderate |
| Property Price to Income Ratio | 11.23 | Moderate |
| Traffic Commute Time Index | 37.56 | Moderate |
| Pollution Index | 31.09 | Low |
| Quality of Life Index: | 180.97 | Very High |
Minimum contributors for an underlying section: 146
Maximum contributors for an underlying section: 641
Last update: 3 May 2025
Nearby Cities:| Quality of Life in North Shore | 6.10 miles |
| Quality of Life in Manukau | 14.42 miles |
| Quality of Life in Hamilton | 78.04 miles |
| Quality of Life in Cambridge | 90.92 miles |
| Quality of Life in Whangarei | 98.49 miles |
| Quality of Life in Tauranga | 126.40 miles |
| Quality of Life in Rotorua | 141.68 miles |
| Quality of Life in Taupo | 172.85 miles |
| Quality of Life in New Plymouth | 223.66 miles |
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Not only are the prices ridiculous (California +), healthcare is outright scary, air quality gone down, you will see many addicts walking around (Crime +++), and lastly, not enough jobs or business opportunities to (over)pay for all of this.
You will feel isolated, far away from the real world.
Higher quality food. Everyone minds their own business, prob too much.
Great infrastructure for family/nature.
Some goods more expensive but most are much less than San Francisco. Not a tipping culture (currently nearly compulsory to add 18-20% in SF).
Quality of life very high - suburban feel neighborhoods close to CBD (within 10 mins). Low traffic, easy parking, well-tended spaces, low trash as compared to other major global cities. Sleepy town element even as a big city, lower ambition, little bit of friendly but stifled vibe.
Did the British use Wormhole technology and travel to New Zealand that is 20,000 kilometers away from Great Britain?
New Zealand and Australia are the farthest countries from the UK geographically on Earth, and yet the 2 most British countries after UK are New Zealand and Australia.
Already a lot of poor and addicted folks around, and with these ever increasing prices this will only become worse.
Australia is not much better, if any.
Have to admit that northern Europe is the better destination for the coming years.
My wife left numerous workplaces also because of the same sort of behaviour and I can also vouch for the fact that we we're told a couple of times to "just go back to your own country", even a mother at school, who we saw and greeted every day, had the audacity to say this to my kids one day when she heard them speak a language other than english! Horrible country hope never to have to go back there for any reason even though we have citizenship.
Sadly, I agree with most comments written here.
I'm a brit who's have just come back from Auckland NZ having lived there for 15 years.
Even with citizenship, I never felt like I belonged. there is a serious clique problem esp in the film industry in Auckland.
I took a lot to leave but after being subjected to Alfa Feminist Bullies in the work place, I just had enough. there are simply too many insecure therefore nasty caty women and they haver stripped men of their capabilities to be men, ie most men are henpecked its embarrassing! The darkest times I ever had where in Auckland.
"Go back to your country" social nepotism is extremely high so even though you worked hard to get your qualifications, friends and family will be hired over you and often with far less skill. Sadly its not a place I can ever go back to as I am greatly traumatised. I got sick and tired of hearing ' Swallow some cement and harden up!"
there is simply no culture or tolerance for vulnerability. Its a cut throut place to live if you ever wanted to entertain or create art!
Beautiful but not worth the bullying, rasim and overely expensive demands in return got very little. 4/10
Insanely expensive rent and housing prices. Many people are priced out of the market.
Tall Poppy Syndrome due to the fact we have a big gap between our very wealthy and our poor.
Too many people working two or even three jobs and still struggling to provide the basics of life.
Our shaming culture to those with mental health and OCD problems. Very little help for such people.
Massive bullying and mental abuse problems in our schools and also our workplaces. Usually the boss does nothing about it and the victim is seen as the trouble maker.
Victim shaming.
Due to the above things an insanely high rate of suicides.
A negative attitude to any change even if it is best for our country and will help us in the long-run.
Poor public transport in much of the country. They want us to get rid of cars but the truth is you simply have to own a car in New Zealand.
There’s a raging methamphetamine epidemic, fuelled by the Asian gangs who import it, the local gangs who distribute it, and the economic hopelessness of increasing numbers of people who have been left behind thanks to the neoliberal reforms of the last 30 years (and the insane property market of the last 10 years). Needless to say, where there’s meth, there’s violence.
While New Zealand is less violently racist, and less legislatively racist than most countries with relatively high proportions of minorities (over one third of the country is Maori, Asian, and Polynesian), Maori and Pacific Islanders feature at the bottom of most statistics. Maori in particular
New Zealand also suffers from what’s known locally as “tall poppy syndrome,” a.k.a. the politics of envy and resentment. This syndrome is so-called because the tallest poppies in a field are the ones that get cut down. It’s an extension of how New Zealanders value humility - arguably a good thing - but it’s taken to an extreme, wherein anyone who succeeds at something, or is perceived to be succeeding, is invariably assumed to be arrogant and big headed, and therefore worthy of mockery, and/or condescension, spite, and negativity. It’s often naked jealousy, and the polar opposite of how Americans like to celebrate success.
New Zealand is a small, young, backward place isolated country of 4.5 million people. (It’s so far away from everywhere that it was the last country in the world to be discovered by humans.) Which is probably what drives a national insecurity that has yet to be fully overcome. This insecurity manifests itself in the pettiness and parochialism you find in many locations that are small and/or isolated. Kiwis like to bury their heads in the sand calling New Zealand godzone which is far from the truth when you look at our statistics in comparison to OECD countries
These are probably the worst aspects of life in New Zealand. While these dark sides are certainly not ignored within New Zealand, they are not commonly known in the rest of the world.
EDIT: There are many wonderful facets to living in New Zealand that, for the vast majority of people, vastly outweigh the dark sides. But they are beyond the scope of this question. Kiwi culture can be very violent a number of backpackers have been murdered over the years and immigrants exploited there is huge distrust between maori/ Pacific islanders and pakeha, NZ is a divisive country that needs to heal if this country wants to move forward
Housing is surprisingly expensive, even outside the major cities, considering the low population density which ought to make land cheap. I think zonal regulations are to blame. But also mortgage interests are relatively high for some reason, maybe because of the small currency area. And lack of competition in the building material import/production sector makes it expensive to build.
Many of the dark sides come actually together with the bright sides—- to have light, there must be also darkness:
Racism (cons) Maori are racist to pakeha, pakeha racist to maoris — Multiculturalism ( pros) : Yes, we are supposed to be bi-cultural ( English and Maori) or Multicultural. However, colonial mentality can still often be found. Topic regarding the Treaty of Waitangi can still be sticky and it is frequent for someone neither European or Maori to hear about the two groups badmouthing each other. When it comes to immigration, there are still always preference for English speaking people from UK or other Anglosphere. Despite that we are much more closer to South Pacific and Asia geographically.
Environmental pollution (cons)—small population ( pros): This is an odd pairing at a glance, but the reason I put them together is about the NZ “green and clean “ image being false. Sure, we have still got miles of greenery outside the cities and our rivers are not visibly odd colour. However, half of the rivers are not swimmable and the green you see are not original flora (pasture grass and pine trees for logging). We have too many cows ,our recycling system is really too simplistic and we use poisons in the fields. When there are not a lot of people, any man made pollution would be less obvious as oppose to the same level of mess in a much more denser populated place. I believe this is make people more careless with the environment than they otherwise would. “ Well, the landfill is full, plenty of other sites we have here..etc”
Tall poppy syndrome (cons)—Humble and easy going attitude( pros): This is really two side of the same coin. As a people we are chilled, but we are often not chilled enough to tolerate others who are “not chilled”. There can be sense of conforming as in you don’t want to be the “ show off” one or the “ trouble making one” in a flock.
There are also dark sides that I don’t see any light side pairing unless you are a sith lord :
Under-regulated housing market
Domestic violence and child poverty
Gender Wage Gap
As an Asian female who is outspoken and does not come with parental cash, I am not very well setup for this at all. However, I can still focus on the light sides and make them work for me, at least I think I can. Trouble is, I can do very little with the last three.
I am pessimistic in nature and believe if we are not careful enough, the dark sides will over take the light sides in a near future eventually.
If we are no longer a friendly, clean, and fair society, what other advantage we have so far away from the rest of the world, in the middle of no where?
Australia the same problem.
We are relocating to Europe and be done with it. Sad, but this is not the paradise we thought it'd be.
The most challenging thing about living here is your weak purchasing power combined with the extremely high cost of living and low salaries. That all combined makes living here very hard, especially if you're not rich or wealthy.
Living here all my life though, and having traveled and lived in many different parts of the world, I must say though that the price to pay here is well worth it. New Zealand isn't exactly an exciting place to live, in fact, if you're after the hustle and bustle you won't get that here. Far from it and quite the polar opposite actually. But if you're after a peaceful, quite, humble life then New Zealand is perfect.
The expatriate networking organisation InterNations surveyed nearly 12,000 respondents of 177 different nationalities, living in 181 countries. Respondents were asked how their new homes performed on factors including quality of life, cost of living, safety, financial outlook, bureuacracy, and ease of fitting in.
In a resulting ranking of 52 countries – those for whom there was a large enough sample size – Aotearoa New Zealand ranked in the doldrums, at 51. It was beaten to the bottom by Kuwait.
"Cost of Living: MYOB poll shows more than 1 million Kiwis actively considering leaving NZ
When asked why they were considering a move abroad, half said they could get a better salary, 44 percent said it's for a better quality of life or the cost of living is better overseas while 34 percent wanted to experience living and working in another country."
Population of NZ is about 5m, so 1/5th want to leave for better lifestyle.