Cohort vulnerability to lack of extended family support: the implications for social policy.

• Author: McPherson, Mervyl

Abstract

Recent decades in New Zealand and other Western countries have seen a move away from state support to increasing reliance on family and oneself. This paper presents a cohort analysis of the potential supply of and demand for extended family support. The four cohorts examined are: (1) those born 1912-16, aged 80-84 in 1996; (2) those born 1932-36, aged 60q54 in 1996; (3) those born 1952-56, aged 40-44 in 1996; (4) those born 1972-76, aged 20--24 in 1996. Family supply variables include average number of children and siblings, marital status, mother: daughter ratio and daughters' labour force participation. Demand for support includes life expectancy at 65 years, proportions of cohort aged over 65 and over 80, and simultaneous child and parent dependency. Analysis of cohort vulnerability to lack of extended family support is then compared to cohort vulnerability to lack of income support from the state and economic demographic compression. The same cohorts are found to be advantaged or disadvantaged across the different areas of vulnerability. The implications for social policy are then considered in terms of which cohorts are likely to be most in need of support beyond the extended family, and which sector of a mixed economy of welfare is most appropriate to provide this.

INTRODUCTION

Towards the end of the 20th century in New Zealand there was a move away from state support towards increasing reliance on family, including the extended family, and oneself. My recent research based on census data, a random sample survey based in Palmerston North and a review of other research in New Zealand and overseas has investigated the capacity and willingness of extended family to provide support to their members, given changing family structures, increased mobility and changing social attitudes, such as towards the traditional role of women within the family (McPherson 1999, 2000a, 2000b).

For the purposes of this research the extended family was defined as family beyond the nuclear family household of spouses and non-adult children. It involves any biological kin or relatives by marriage, aged 18 years and over. "Social" kin such as adoptees and relatives resulting from de facto relationships were also included where respondents regarded them as family. The types of support investigated included:

* caregiving of children, dependent elderly and chronically ill or injured people

* financial support

* help with household tasks

* social-emotional support.

Using New Zealand census and vital registration data, this paper presents a cohort analysis of the potential supply of and demand for extended family support. The four cohorts examined are: (1) those born 1912-16, aged 80-84 in 1996; (2) those born 1932-36, aged 60-64 in 1996; (3) those born 1952-56, aged 40-44 in 1996; (4) those born 1972-76, aged 20-24 in 1996. Family supply variables include average number of children and siblings, marital status, mother: daughter ratio and daughters' labour force participation. Demand for support includes life expectancy at 65 years, proportions of cohorts aged 65 years and over and 80 years and over, and simultaneous child and parent dependency.

Analysis of cohort vulnerability to lack of extended family support is then compared to cohort vulnerability to lack of income support from the state, as analysed by Thomson (1991), and economic demographic compression, as per Jackson (1998). The implications for social policy are then considered in terms of which cohorts are likely to be most in need of support beyond the extended family, and which sector of a mixed economy of welfare is most appropriate to provide this.

BACKGROUND

Evidence of government intention to move from state support to increased reliance on oneself or one's family can be found in various policy documents in the areas of welfare (Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989, Shipley et al. 1991, Department of Social Welfare 1996a, 1996b), health (Upton 1991, Shipley and Upton 1992) and education (Education ]Student Allowances] Notice, New Zealand Regulations 1997/51), and in commentaries on these changes (Kelsey 1993, Cheyne et al. 1997, Boston 1999a, 1999b, Pool 2000, New Zealand Treasury and Richardson 1991).

For example, in 1991 the Ministers of Social Welfare, Health, Housing and Education in a joint document stated that a major element of their new policy initiatives was "to encourage people to move from state dependence to personal and family self-reliance" (Shipley et al. 1991:17), including, for instance, the continuance of family income testing for single students aged up to 25 years. The 1996 post-election briefing papers on "strengthening families" and the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 include the extended family or kinship groups in their concept of family that should be providing support. (2)

Such policies rely on assumptions about the nature and operation of families that may not be based on the reality of family structures today, or be in keeping with the belief systems of members of our society about the role of the family. These issues are elaborated on in McPherson (1999). While extended families in New Zealand and other Western societies do still function as mutual support systems in post-industrial society, this help is selective rather than automatic (McPherson 2000b). There needs to be more sustained investigation into whether our extended families are able to fulfil their role of support to members in need.

Demographic change means families are smaller and have been through a period of high marital disruption, and the population structure is aging (McPherson 1992, 1993). Geographic mobility is also an issue, physically distancing extended family members from one another. New Zealand research has shown that demands for extended family support are likely to increase at a time when the potential supply is decreasing (McPherson 1993, 2000).

Although the increasing proportion of elderly in the population is compensated for by a declining proportion of young (dependent) people, the nature of youth dependency is changing, resulting in increasing demands from this generation despite falling numbers. In addition, changing patterns of marital status will result in more people without immediate family to depend on and thus increased demands on the extended family (Millward 1997, 1998, Eggebeen 1992, White 1992, Marks 1995 cited in McPherson 2000b). Demand for support beyond the nuclear family may also be increased by increasing numbers in low socio-economic groups, because these families are more in need of support and less able to provide the support resources (Sussman 1988, Liu 1992, Hogan et al. 1993, Millward 1998, de Vaus and Qu 1998). Similarly, increasing income disparities as a result of a decline at the bottom of the scale and an increase at the top (Cheyne et al. 1997, Podder and Chatterjee 1998, Statistics New Zealand 1999a, 1999b) are likely to result in more families with less ability to provide financial support to members in need.

On the supply side, as a result of increasing female labour force participation, it cannot be assumed that women are available to carry out the traditional familist role of caregiving. While increasing numbers of young elderly (aged 60-74 years) may be able to replace younger women in their family support role, they may not be available either if policies such as the proposed private provision of superannuation encourage them to remain in the labour force. The number of adult children that elderly parents can turn to will also decline, and there is likely to be greater geographic mobility, which will result in lack of proximity to family members and thus reduce their ability to provide some key types of support, such as caregiving.

The ethnic composition of the population is increasingly non-European, which according to the literature may result in less, rather than more, family support due to their over-representation in low socio-economic groups. This renders them unable to practise the support networks of their traditional strong familist norms so that they in fact give and receive less family support than European groups (Hogan et al. 1993, Cantor et al. 1994, de Vaus 1996, Roschelle 1997, Millward 1998, Batrouney and Stone 1998). This is also the case for many recent migrants in New Zealand (Rivera 1997, Henderson et al. 2001, North et al. 1999, Trlin et a1. 1999, 2001) and elsewhere (Menjivar 1997, Roschelle 1997, Batrouney and Stone 1998, Millward 1998), who often do not have extended family nearby and have difficulty finding employment.

In the social policy arena these factors have implications, for example, for the implementation and outcomes of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989, which aims to place young people in need of care and protection with their extended family, or whanau. Such placements may need to be adequately fiscally resourced to enable families to provide the care.

COHORT ANALYSIS

Further analysis of trends in demographic variables related to the supply of and demand for extended family support identified variations in cohort vulnerability to high demand for and low supply of such support. The concept of demographic compression, which refers to the compression of major life-cycle events into a shorter period (Jackson 1998) is also useful in this...