Summary Report - pdf - Department of Families, Housing ...

Family lifeFamily is important in the lives of children. What happensto a family as a whole and to individual members of thefamily will shape how the child feels and thinks.As people grow and change, so do their families. Changesin the family can occur when new members join thefamily or when family members leave or move to anotherlocation. There are various reasons for these changes, suchas the birth of a child, partnering or re-partnering, parentalrelationship breakdown and separation, older childrenleaving home and the inclusion of extended familymembers.According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS),Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households arelarger than non-Indigenous households—on averagethey contain 3.4 people as opposed to 2.6 peopleper household—and more likely to be multiple-familyhouseholds (ABS 2010b). The way Aboriginal familymembers interact with each other is also different fromthat of non-Aboriginal families, and some of thesedifferences need to be understood within historical andcultural contexts (Walker and Shepherd 2008). Aboriginaland Torres Strait Islander families are not homogenous; theirstructure and composition varies greatly, especially acrossdifferent geographical locations.Family structure and housingFamily structureAt the time of the wave 3 interview, about one-quarterof the study children lived in a lone-parent family 8 withno other adults present in the household. If we combinethis figure with the number of lone-parent families withother adult members present, more than one-third ofthe children (39 per cent) lived in households with theirunpartnered parent (Table 13). This proportion decreasedin comparison with the wave 1 figure, possibly because theparents had repartnered, the primary carer had changed,or there was a higher rate of attrition from the study forlone-parent families 9 .The predominant family type has remained couplefamilies: the proportion of children living in such familiesfluctuated between 53 and 55 per cent across the threewaves. The proportion of couple families where otheradults were present has increased over time.Table 13: Family type of study child, waves 1 to 3Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 3Family typeNo. % No. % No. %Lone parent, no other adults present 492 29.5 405 26.6 367 26.1Lone parent, other adults present 214 12.8 193 12.7 181 12.9Couple family with children,no other adults presentCouple family with children,other adults present714 42.8 659 43.3 590 42.0175 10.5 182 12.0 174 12.4Non-parent 75 4.5 84 5.5 92 6.6Total respondents 1,670 100.0 1,523 100.0 1,404 100.0Note:‘Lone parent’ and ‘Couple’ family types include families where the primary carer is a biological, step, adoptive or foster parentof the study child. ‘Non-parent’ carer families include families where the primary carer is a grandparent, aunt or uncle, otherrelative or non-relative of the study child.8 Lone-parent families and couple family types include families where the primary carer is the biological, step, adoptive or foster primary parent ofthe child.9 For further information about attrition rates in wave 3, refer to Appendix A.Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children | Key Summary Report from Wave 327