Dramatic change in family unit — statistics report

Press, 7 September 1989, Page 5

Dramatic change in family unit — statistics report

PA Wellington Eighty-eight per cent of New Zealanders still live in families, but the composition of the family unit has changed dramatically.

The change follows rises in the divorce rate and the age of the population and a decline in the birthrate.

The growth in the number of one-parent families and childless couples is also a key factor, according to a Statistics Department report on families and households, based on information collected in the 1986 Census. One result has been that the number of “typical” families — consisting of a husband and wife with at least one child — has declined for the second successive Census, to 44 per cent of all families and 34 per cent of all households.

Family, for Census purposes, is defined as a husband and wife in a legal or de facto marriage, with or without children of any age living

with them, or a sole parent with children. A household is the total number of occupants of a dwelling, who may or may not form a family. The average size of households has fallen below three persons for the first time. Half of all households now contain one or two persons only. Although the trend appears to be slowing, increases in one person households still account for a third of the total, increase in households since 1981. Other features include:

• One in five families is a sole parent family. • Two parents work in 42 per cent of families with children. • Solo mothers are 42 per cent less likely than mothers in two-parent families to join the labour force and, when they do, their unemployment rate

is higher. • On average sole-par-ent families receive only 41 per cent of the income of two-parent familes. • Proportionally, twice as many one-parent families as two-parent families are living in rental accommodation, while three times as many share their home with other people. The rate of formal marriages continued to decline. From a peak of 45.3 marriages per 1000 non-married population 16 years and over in 1971, the rate dropped to 25.3 in 1986.

The report says the decline in formal marriages was partially offset by a rise in de facto unions which, by the last Census, accounted for 8 per cent of all marriages, formal and de facto. Between 1971 and 1986 the divorce rate rose 132 per cent.