New research suggests New Zealand ranks third in the world for our standard of material living, but there are questions around how we're accumulating our material wealth. 

Senior fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Arthur Grimes believes the research contradicts the message that we've been struggling economically.

He said families fare better here than if they lived in other countries, where they would probably be in much more crowded homes.

"You imagine if you have a three bedroom house and you have a couple with two children and each child gets a room to themselves, but if you had the same sized house but had eight children for instance then you'd have a real squeeze in terms of bedrooms."

But Mr Grimes admits it's a different story for families on lower incomes.

Family Budgeting chief Raewyn Fox is backing new research, but she ties it in with other research highlighting the growing gap between rich and poor in this country. She is concerned with the fact New Zealanders are pretty comfortable with debt.

I think that maybe it's a bit of a worry if a lot of those things have been bought with credit and maybe the people have got a lot of debt to acquire all of those things."

Raewyn Fox said her service sees a lot of people who really can't afford all the extras.

The research measures things such as the number of bedrooms per household, cars, white-ware and internet access.