OPINION
Hon Steve Maharey 4 December 2003 speech notes,
Strengthening Family Relationships conference. Michael Fowler Centre,
Wellington.
Building strong relationships to
strengthen families and whanau
Introduction
Thank you for inviting me to present my thoughts on strengthening family
relationships and the role this current government is playing in
building strong families in New Zealand.
The family is society’s most fundamental building block. At its core,
the family has the prime responsibility for raising children. It does so
primarily through providing care and nurturing, transferring culture and
values, and shaping individual identity. The family also plays a
critical role in supporting the emotional, social and economic needs of
its other members, including partners, aged parents, or other kin. These
factors are often overlooked in public debate, but will become
increasingly important in an ageing society.
Finally, the family is the ‘institution’ that
interacts with the state, the community and the market. Probably the
most critical issue for the policy maker in the 21st century is the
realisation that families come in many forms, and provide many and
varied roles. Above all else relationships are at the core of today’s
family. What we know is that the quality of relationships — between
couples, and between parents and children — makes a big difference to
how individuals cope with change and with personal and family crisis.
It is this that you have come here to discuss today.
How to help parents and children build strong family relationships so
that they have successful outcomes, even if the form of the family
changes. This is a big challenge. It is not something the government can
— or should — do on its own. Individuals, agencies, advocates,
communities and government all have a role to play. How to help families
without intruding on their privacy is part of the challenge.
New Zealand families
What do we know about New Zealand families today?
The nuclear family of the 1950s — with a father in full-time work,
supporting a wife and children — is no longer the dominant model. In 61%
of two-parent families, both parents are employed. In about half of
these families, both parents are employed full-time.
One-parent families have increased from 10 percent of
families in 1976 to 29 percent in 2001. Relationship breakdown has
replaced widowhood as the main cause of sole parenthood. Often the
debate about family form ignores entirely the extent of diversity that
exists within the so-called “single parent family”.
This includes the factors that led to this family
form, the age and circumstances of the children within these families,
the skills and background of the single parent, and the nature and
strength of the relationship between parents who may be jointly involved
in bringing up their children following the breakdown of their own
relationship.
A significant oversight in this debate is also the
extent to which single parent families are supported by a wider extended
family, either through co-residence or through strong economic and
social support.
The nuclear family is in fact a relatively recent
model and mainly reflects the experience of Pakeha New Zealanders.
However, within these nuclear families there have always been
obligations and support relationships that extend over generations and
to family members outside the immediate household. These
responsibilities will become increasingly important in an ageing
population. In the coming decade the fastest growing family form will be
that of a couple family without resident children.
Among Maori and Pacific peoples, sizeable minorities
still live in extended families, with several family members sharing
childrearing and economic roles. In some new migrant families, the male
breadwinner model is still the norm. There can be intergenerational
differences between overseas-born and New Zealand-born family members in
their expectations of family roles and obligations.
Couples are marrying later, less often, and for
shorter periods. From 1971 to 2002, the median age of marriage rose from
21 to 28 years for women, and from 23 to 29 years for men. Over the same
period, the divorce rate more than doubled, from 5.1 divorces per 1,000
existing marriages to 12.9 per 1,000. Thirty percent of couples married
in 1977 had divorced within 25 years, compared to 26 percent of those
married in 1967. Cohabiting parents made up 3 percent of couples with
children in 1981, rising to 11 percent in 2001.
Marriages involving divorced people give some
indication of the growth of reconstituted families. In 2001, 37 percent
of marriages involved at least one previously married person, up from 16
percent in 1971.
Today’s new mothers are having fewer children than
their mothers’ generation and at an older age. Average family size has
fallen from 2.5 children in 1966 to 1.9 in 2001. The average number of
children born has dropped from a peak of 4.2 births per woman in 1962 to
1.9 in 2002. The median age for a woman giving birth is now 30 years,
compared to 25 years in the early 1970s. However, Maori mothers are
younger on average, with a median age of 26 years for those giving birth
in 2001.
These trends are reflected in the older age of parents
living with dependent children. From 1986 to 2001, the median age of
mothers of dependent children rose from 35 to 38 years; for fathers, the
median age rose from 38 to 40 years.
Diversity and change in families is likely to
continue, reflecting in part the increasing diversity of the New Zealand
population. An increasing proportion of children are spending time in
more than one household, or in blended families, as a result of their
parents’ separation. These changing relationships often place
considerable demands on parents and children.
Expectations of fathers are also changing, with more
emphasis on their relationship with children as opposed to their role as
economic providers. Supporting fathers to maintain ongoing contact with
their children following separation is obviously a major challenge.
None of the family structures I have described here
are necessarily better or worse than each other. The challenge is to
support the varying family configurations so that they can all operate
effectively and successfully, to give parents the skills to cope with
relationship changes and thereby enable children to flourish.
Our programme of reform and support for New Zealand’s
family is taking place on many fronts. It includes our work to modernise
the framework for resolving ongoing care arrangements for children
within families, especially when the relationship between the parents
breaks down, through the Care of Children Bill that is presently before
the Select Committee. It includes programmes of parental support and
intervention with families who need greater levels of assistance, and it
includes our reform of the welfare system to make families economically
sustainable.
It also includes our work to better support the
balance between working life and family life. This involves promoting
workplaces and work practices that are family friendly, and supporting
to families in their care giving responsibilities.
Building strong families: benefit and childcare
reforms
One area of sharp difference among New Zealand’s families is in their
economic standards of living. Clearly, an adequate standard of living is
essential for healthy families and healthy children. The research
evidence is clear — children living for extended periods in families at
the low end of income distribution experience a double disadvantage.
Hard times in the present, and a higher risk of poorer outcomes in the
years ahead.
Living in low-income households increases risks of
poor outcomes for all children, but especially for those in lone parent
households. Many of you will be familiar with the landmark research of
leading US academic Sasa McLanahan and Gary Sandefur on the effect of
income on disparities in outcomes for children from single parent and
two-parent families.
Their conclusion was that:
“Low income or income loss is the single most important factor in
accounting for the lower achievement of children in single-mother
families. It accounts for half of the difference in educational
achievement, weak labour force attachment, and early childbearing.”
From break-through work on living standards undertaken
by the Ministry of Social Development’s Centre for Social Research and
Evaluation, we know that almost a third — 29 percent — of New Zealand
children live in restricted economic circumstances. As a living standard
measure this covers a range or continuum of circumstances that could
best be described as relative hardship.
Individual families will differ in the degree of
relative hardship and in what changes and accommodations they have to
make in response. Often this will involve adults going without so their
children don’t have to.
However, what is clear is that these families are much
less likely to have access to comfort or luxury items like personal
computers or holidays and will have to economise to varying degrees on
basic items like clothes, shoes and utilities — in the very toughest
circumstances core essentials like doctors visits or glasses start to be
postponed or even gone without. For children, this economising is likely
to impact on buying school books, missing school outings and cultural
and sports activities.
These factors can all adversely affect a child’s
development, and education. And poor health, education, and social
outcomes in the present lay the foundation for poor outcomes in the
future.
Restricted economic circumstances are often a direct
result of the phenomenon of ‘work poor’ families — families with no
parent in paid employment. Around a third of Maori and Pacific children,
25% of Asian children, and 15% of European children live in families
without a parent in paid work.
Recent reductions in the levels of unemployment and
improved participation in employment are beginning to change this
situation. Over the past five years the numbers of couple families with
children reliant on a benefit as their main source of income has fallen
by 36%.
Hardship, however, extends to some low income working
families too — it’s not just the work poor households that are at risk,
but also the working poor.
Making work pay for families
This government is committed to helping both the work poor and the
working poor. Central to this, we want to “make work pay” for families.
This year we introduced a package of benefit reforms targeted at helping
parents, especially sole parents into sustainable employment. These
reforms take account of the circumstances and responsibilities of
parents, particularly single parents. We removed the work test for
single parent families, and introduced a Personal Development Employment
and Planning process.
We lowered the caseloads of Work and Income case
managers, enabling them to provide enhanced case management to their
clients. Enhanced case management is a holistic and comprehensive
approach to client assessment and support. It’s a radical step away from
simply paying out benefits to clients.
This process aims at better supporting parents in
their roles as both economic providers and in the care, nurturing and
development of their children. It enables parents to identify their
goals and the actions required to achieve them. The focus is on finding
long-term employment solutions, rather than less-than-adequate quick
fixes.
Early results from this change are promising. Of the
80% of parents who have developed a personal development plan, a third
have committed themselves to education and training. This rises to close
to 40% for those with children between 1 and 7 years of age.
Quality, affordable childcare is essential to a parent
entering and remaining in employment. The 1998 New Zealand Childcare
Survey confirmed that childcare problems affected the ability of one in
seven parents to work.
In this year’s Budget, the Government increased the
maximum number of hours of subsidised children for low-income families,
from 37 to 50 hours per week. Over the next four years, we’re investing
$24.5 million in subsidised childcare hours for low-income working
parents.
In addition to these and other initiatives, planning
is underway for further benefit reform that we hope will assist low to
middle income families with dependent children. We have to do more to
assist these families to deliver a decent standard of living for their
families and give their children real opportunity and security. We
expect to make announcements on this in the 2004 budget.
Building strong families: support, advocacy,
research
Economic independence and an adequate standard of living are critical to
healthy families. But clearly, building a strong and healthy family is
not a matter of just income alone.
The Government’s Parent and Child Support Development Programme includes
a range of initiatives that provide support, information, knowledge, and
skills training to parents.
The Government’s Strengthening Families strategy is a
major platform for pulling together the resources across government
agencies and community providers to address the needs of particularly
vulnerable families. The strategy places strong emphasis on effective
relationships, requiring community and government agencies working
together with high-risk families.
The Government given the Ministry of Social
Development overall responsibility for leadership and coordination of
family services. This is a new function for the Ministry. It is
establishing a national family Services unit in Wellington, and four
regional offices in Auckland, Rotorua, Wellington and Christchurch.
The service will be supported by a national advisory
body, with representatives from government and non-government agencies,
iwi/Maori and Pacific peoples. The advisory body will help develop
family support strategies and oversee their implementation.
We are also currently considering how we might enhance
programme initiatives such as Family Start and Social Workers in
Schools. These programmes work with children and families who are at
greatest risk of poor life outcomes. Findings to date from evaluations
of both initiatives indicate that these programmes are positively
received by the families who they have worked with.
The Families Commission comes into being next year.
The lynch pin in building support for families across the government
sector, the Commission’s main focus will be on advocacy and research.
The Commission will build public awareness and create
a better understanding of family issues and what works well for
families. Its strong research function will ensure that everything it
does is based on sound evidence — on what we know works well.
All our work for New Zealand families must draw on
evidence-based policy and practice. Real, concrete evidence about what
happens beyond the front door in our family homes, and what programmes
and interventions are effective in building strong resilient families.
Work underway in the Department of Labour and in the
Ministry of Social Development is seeking to understand the issues
parents face in balancing their work and home lives, and in particular
how these issues affect outcomes for children. Results from some of this
work are expected early next year.
We have also asked the OECD, through its programme of
international comparisons, to work with us to identify what we might
need to do to better support families in the interface between work and
family life. I am aware of many of the areas that the OECD will probably
highlight, including promoting family-friendly work places and
practices, and providing quality childcare and parental leave.
As a government we have begun to make major inroads on
this front. In our first term we secured paid parental leave for working
parents. Our commitment to extend holiday leave provisions from 3 to 4
weeks acknowledges that family life is changing. Increased participation
in work by parents needs to be supported through the creation of
opportunities for families to have time together.
Building strong families: addressing family
violence and children’s safety
New Zealand’s record in ensuring safe supportive family contexts
continues to be shaken and challenged. We must acknowledge these
problems and take the action to address them.
Te Rito New Zealand Family Violence Prevention
Strategy was launched in March 2002.
At Te Rito’s core is a vision of a New Zealand where
families and whanau are living free from violence. A collaborative
strategy between government and non-government agencies, Te Rito
reinforces the Government’s commitment to a number of international
conventions related to preventing violence in families and whanau.
A new initiative to improve access to family violence
information is the Family Violence Clearing House. We expect that the
Clearing House will be an essential resource to guide best practice for
government agencies working to reduce family violence in New Zealand.
In response to the Baseline Review of the Department
of Child, Youth and Family Services, we’ve strengthened the Department’s
focus on keeping children safe and secure, and preventing youth
offending.
Aotearoa solutions
The New Zealand family of the future will be a complex institution
requiring a multitude of support mechanisms. We’re certainly making
progress. But this is an area that represents considerable challenge. I
know that the addresses by Professors Amato, Bradbury and Russell — and
today’s three panel discussions — will deepen our insight to the
critical dimensions of family relationships.
While indeed we do have much to learn from the
international experience, to me it is vital that we develop solutions
that meet the particular needs of our people. Who better than ourselves
can genuinely understand our own needs? Who better than ourselves can
build the support for the New Zealand family, in its many forms, to
emerge intact and functioning in the decades to come?
I’m sure the high calibre of today’s speakers and
discussion panel members will provide a springboard for new perspectives
and approaches that will help forge uniquely New Zealand solutions for
uniquely New Zealand challenges.
Hon Steve Maharey
4 December 2003
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