Well-being and cultural identity for Māori: Knowledge of iwi (tribal) affiliations does not strongly relate to health and social service outcomes

Research indicates that experiences in health and social services vary depending on identity. For Indigenous groups, identity and affiliation is complex. This paper explores ethnicity and knowledge of tribal (iwi) affiliations for Māori (the Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand), and links this to health and social service outcomes in administrative data, the national Census, and Māori social survey data. While many initiatives have sought to connect Māori to iwi - where such knowledge has been severed by colonization - we find surprisingly few differences in data between those who named tribal affiliations and those who did not, across sole- and mixed-Māori ethnicity groups. Those who did not name an iwi were less likely to live in overcrowded homes, but were less likely to own that home, and more likely to be a smoker. Unsurprisingly, those who did not name tribal affiliations were less likely to find Māori culture as important, although many still did. These groups also had slightly less contact with social networks and support, plus felt lonelier. The results also point to sole-ethnic identification as Māori as a key marker of experiences of inequity and suggest that connections to tribal affiliations are more complicated than a binary of “connected” or “disconnected”. However, in some indicator areas, affiliation differences should be followed up with future work. We argue these results give further weight to the need for good quality data and indicators designed with Māori populations in mind to measure and monitor inequity. •Health and social service outcomes vary by identity, including for Indigenous groups.•A focus for Indigenous health and wellbeing has been on identity re-connection.•We explore affiliation with iwi (tribes) for Māori across administrative, census and survey data.•There were few differences between those who named their iwi (tribal) affiliations and those who did not.•The main indicator of wellbeing was instead solely identifying as Māori compared to mixed-identifying Māori.