Workforce Data — Religion 2021

We learned that 46.7% of respondents were affiliated with a religion and the remaining 53.3% had no religion. This compares with just under half (48.2%) of the New Zealand population, who also reported no religion through the 2018 Census. Stats NZ described “an increasing trend in the number of people reporting no religion in the last few censuses”.

Losing our religion — Stats NZ

Of those affiliated with religion, ‘Christian’ is the largest religious grouping in the Public Service (34.4% of respondents), as it is in the wider population (37% in the 2018 Census). Other religious affiliations can be seen below, with those such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam also similar to 2018 Census results for the New Zealand population.

Religion(XLSX, 10 KB)

Our public servants who affiliate with a religion are a diverse population, recording 133 religious categories in total (compared to the 157 categories reported in the 2018 Census for the New Zealand population).

Te Taunaki results generally indicate that the experience of working in the Public Service doesn’t vary substantially by religion. 

For more data, see the Census drilldown data cubes.

Data drilldown and technical guidance