For the first time, 6000 children taking part in the country's largest longitudinal study have been able to give their own thoughts and insights into their lives.
JJ Mariner is one of the participants of the study. Photo: Supplied
The latest report from the University of Auckland's Growing Up in New Zealand study focuses on life for the children, born in 2009 and 2010, at the age of eight.
It is the first report to interview children directly so that researchers could gain insights into their view of themselves and the world.
Growing Up in New Zealand principal investigator, Professor Susan Morton, told Kathryn Ryan about the purpose of the study.
“We, along with many policy agencies, wanted to see a study like this in the 21st century so that we could actually start to shape policies that were relevant to the context that these children are growing up in today, and also to the new diversity that is our current population.”
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Many of the children reported living fulfilling lives a firm sense of cultural and gender identity, increasing freedom and high levels of participation in sport and music, Professor Morton said.
The cohort also moved around a lot – three quarters had moved at least once – and almost half had moved two or more times since birth.
Sometimes it was for good reasons – such as their parents moving from a rental to purchasing their own homes, but for a portion, it was going from rental to rental.
There were other signs of concern too, Professor Morton said.
“We have a group of children that are increasingly falling behind their peers and that is something that we’ve watched over time develop and it is something that saddens us and something that we hope to utilise the information that comes directly from these children and their families to understand how we can do better.
“In particular we see for example one in four of our children are experiencing persistent deprivation or poverty right throughout their early lives and unfortunately by the time they are eight we are starting to see that having an impact on their mental health, so if we measure their depression and their anxiety scores we see that they fall behind their peers in that regard.
“We also see in terms of their physical well-being that they are falling behind their peers, so if we think about something like overweight and obesity, we’re seeing higher rates in those children who are exposed to persistent disadvantage.
“We really want to use this information, as we have in the past, to say yes we need to address this poverty, this advantage, but what can we do alongside to actually support these families and the children in their wider environments, because not all children who are exposed to those disadvantages will go on to have poorer outcomes, some will actually do well and we can learn from their stories to actually shape and support for those families and children while we address some of these wicked problems that we know affect our society.”