Living standards and material conditions of young New Zealand families.(Report)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a descriptive profile of the personal characteristics and socio-economic circumstances of a cohort of young parents (N = 155) who had full-time care of at least one dependent child at 25 years of age. In addition, we investigated the extent to which these families were faced with material hardship and adverse living conditions, and examined the life-course pathways and concurrent risk factors that place young families at elevated risk of material hardship. Employing longitudinal data from the Christchurch Health and Development Study, the results showed that around one in five of these young families were experiencing moderate to severe material hardship. Higher levels of material hardship were predicted by a range of antecedent and concurrent life-course experiences, including family socio-economic status in childhood, mental health problems in adolescence, family structure, and employment- and income-related factors in young adulthood. These findings are discussed in light of current social and economic policy for income maintenance, employment facilitation and welfare reduction.

INTRODUCTION

In New Zealand there is clear concern at the extent to which children are being raised in conditions of socio-economic disadvantage and poverty (Ballantyne et al. 2003, Maloney 2004, Jensen et al. 2006). Reinforcing these concerns is evidence demonstrating links between family socio-economic disadvantage and a wide range of adverse health, educational and behavioural outcomes for children. These adverse outcomes include an increased body mass index, poorer cardio-respiratory fitness and systolic blood pressure, higher rates of periodontal disease, educational underachievement, and elevated rates of mental health problems, spanning both internalising and externalising behaviour problems (Miech et al. 1999, Duncan and Brooks-Gunn 2000, Poulton et al. 2002, Gershoff et al. 2007).

Drawing on data from Statistics New Zealand, researchers have employed a range of analytic techniques to document New Zealand's relatively high and stable poverty rate.2 For example, Ballantyne and colleagues (2003) employed pooled data from 1997 to 2000 from the Income Supplement of the Household Labour Force Survey and estimated that New Zealand's child poverty rate exceeded 20% (23.2% for 1997/98 and 22.8% for 1998/99). This estimate was based on a threshold of child poverty of 60% or lower than the 1998 adjusted median household income. Relative to other countries using a similar threshold, this level of child poverty placed New Zealand slightly lower than Great Britain but higher than Spain, Hungary and Germany.

Because the New Zealand economy was rather stagnant during the late 1990s it could be argued that these seemingly high rates of child poverty may have arisen as a consequence of the poorer financial conditions of the overall population during this period. However, beginning in 2000 and 2001 the tide turned and the economy began to grow. According to data from Statistics New Zealand (2002), between 1999 and 2001 the unemployment rate decreased from 7.5% to 5.7%, the rate of participation in the labour force remained steady at 65%, and the average growth in weekly income for families with dependent children (7.16% from June 1999 to June 2001) was almost 2% higher than the rate of inflation (5.3% from June 1999 to June 2001).

In light of these broad economic gains, rates of child poverty might also have been expected to drop. However, a recent report by Perry (2007) further documented that the estimated rates of child poverty remained relatively stable during this period; and although there was a small reduction in 2004 as the economy continued its remarkable growth, it has always remained near or above 20%, depending on the type of poverty assessment employed (see Perry 2007:47-58). These national findings and trends tend to confirm public health and social concerns that, at any one time, around one in every four to five New Zealand children will be living in adverse socio-economic circumstances that are likely to affect their health, development and educational opportunities.