Project Aims / Objectives

The research programme will identify key factors contributing to positive outcomes for different types of families/whanau/households, specific population and age groups (eg tangata whenua, Pacific peoples, young people) and social and geographic communities (eg rural, urban, neighbourhood).
This will generate insights at a national level that will underpin our understanding of family/whanau and community wellbeing in social and historical context as well as assist the development of evidence based social policy. This research builds on existing work by researchers as well as crown agencies. It will also inform future research and routine data gathering.

Objectives.
This research project is built around 4 main objectives:

Objective 1.
Development of Social Indicators for Family and Whanau -
To develop social indicators of family/whanau/household composition, socioeconomic status and wellbeing that are applicable to routinely collected information (e.g. Census).

Objective 2.
Analysis of Family/Whanau Wellbeing in Social and Structural Context.
To conduct census-based time series analyses of family/whanau composition, SES and wellbeing and examine the social wellbeing of different cohorts of key population groups.

Objective 3.
Time Series Analysis of Social Indicators.
To analyse interrelationships between social indicators (of family/whanau/household composition, SES and wellbeing) and social structure, social context, and event history.

Objective 4.
Feasibility of a new knowledge platform for monitoring family/whanau wellbeing.
To assess the feasibility of combining data from different censuses / social surveys and the viability of constructing a synthetic cohort as a platform from which to monitor family and whanau wellbeing over time.