Growing Up study uncovers housing insecurity

Peter Verschaffelt Growing Up study uncovers housing insecurity

Download Audio

The lead researcher of a study looking at housing data from the Growing up in New Zealand study has found a worrying pattern of increased housing insecurity.

Sarah-Jane Paine says the 4500 participants in the study have now turned 12, and for many young people and their families, moving homes has become the norm.

Only about 30 percent were in stable housing, mostly because their family owned the home.

But some of the children had moved multiple times since they were interviewed at age 8.

“These patterns of moving, of disadvantage, of hardship, of food insecurity are an increasingly common experience for whanau Maori, for rangatahi Maori and for our Pacific relations, our Pacific young people and their relations too, so I am increasingly concerned about those patterns of inequity we are seeing,” Dr Paine says.

The next round of the study will look at how the cohort has managed the transition into adolescence – and the hardships seen now could destabilise their prospects for life.

RELATED NEWS

Labour key to Northland race Tuhoe kuia led call for national museum Better Sealord result boosts Moana profit