The dynamic, complex and diverse living and care arrangements of young New Zealanders: implications for policy

Abstract

The living arrangements of young people in New Zealand are diverse and often complex. In this article we report the range of care and living arrangements of 209 15-year-old New Zealanders, 47 of whom identified as Māori. These young people were participants in the second generation of a cohort study. Data were collected from their parents via a life history calendar and analysed for variety and consistency of care arrangements, household membership and transitions. Few participants had a consistent pattern of parental care arrangements and most had experienced multiple changes in household composition and frequent changes of address. We conclude that the whānau/family lives of many young New Zealanders are complex and dynamic. These observations contrast with the conventional notions of family life that form the basis for New Zealand's family policies. We argue that social policies and services impacting on young people need to reflect the lived reality of young people if they are to meet young people's needs.

Changes to family structure, household composition and address among young New Zealanders: an update

“…The widespread changes to family structure in recent decades mean that it is important for researchers and policy makers to continue to reflect on and understand what constitutes 'family' and also how this changes over the life course and with time. The current research extends our previous research on family complexity in a sample of 209 young people (Sligo et al 2017) to include a larger, more representative participant group with a broader range of parental ages at the time of the child's birth, allowing us to compare the lives of children of younger and older mothers. We aim to describe care and co-residence with biological parents and other co-residents, changes to care, and residential mobility across the first 180 months of life for 612 young people.…”

“…As noted, this work includes 209 people for whom data have already been reported (Sligo et al 2017). The median maternal age is higher in the current, larger sample and overall measures indicate that complexity and change are lower among those with older parents.…”

“…The life history calendar (LHC) is a chart capturing the people that the Next Generation Study participant lived with, and where they lived between birth and their fifteenth birthday (180 months of data). Trained interviewers guided participants through a description their lives using the LHC as a visual aid (Sligo et al 2011(Sligo et al , 2017.…”

“…We also report on the nature, number and duration of the participants' co-resident relationships (see Sligo et al 2017 for details). Finally, we assessed how many locations each participant had lived in.…”

“…Our previous research (Sligo et al 2017) indicated that young people in Aotearoa New Zealand experience a diverse, complex, and frequently changing set of living circumstances. This is important because this degree of complexity and change is poorly recognised by the policies, practice, and research aimed at supporting young people.…”