April 12, 2023
Hard choices revealed in Growing Up study
The latest update from the Growing Up in New Zealand study has revealed one in five of the tamariki has experienced hardship.
Research director Sarah-Jane Paine, and associate professor with Te Kūpenga Hauora Māori at the University of Auckland’s faculty of medical and health sciences, says the cohort of 6000 children is now 12 years old.
She says for many whānau the hardest years are when their children are young, and the number now considered to be living in households with material hardship is one in 10.
“What that means is one in 10 young people are living in households where the adults in that house are being forced to make decisions on how they spend their money on food, on housing, on transport, on fuel, on heating so these are not the sorts of choices one might make to save a little bit of money here and there. these are the decisions whānau are being forced to make just to meet the basics of daily living,” Associate Professor Paine says.
The longitudinal study is giving policy makers real insight into what hardship is like in Aotearoa.