Children and Young People: Indicators of Wellbeing in New Zealand 2008

Environment
Children living with a parent who smokes
Household crowding

ISBN 978-0-478-33506-4 (Print) 
ISBN 978-0-478-33507-1 (Online)

The other sections and the appendices of the Children and Young People: Indicators of Wellbeing in New Zealand can be found at www.msd.govt.nz
Environment
Desired outcomes
All children and young people live in, and have access to, healthy natural and built environments.
Introduction
Children’s environmental health was the subject of a Global Initiative launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in September 2002. The focus on children is justified by the fact that children are more vulnerable than adults to environmental risks for a number of reasons. Children have little control over their environment. Unlike adults, they may be both unaware of risks and unable to make choices to protect their health. In proportion to their weight, they breathe more air, consume more food, and drink more water than adults do. Children’s central nervous, immune, reproductive and digestive systems are still developing, and exposure to environmental toxins can lead to irreversible damage. The phasing out of lead from gasoline in New Zealand between 1986 and 1996 was a critical step in reducing one of the major environmental hazards to the health of our children and young people. 

The World Health Organization is leading the implementation of the Global Initiative on Children’s Environmental Health and has developed a framework of children’s environmental health indicators. The Multiple Exposures Multiple Effects (MEME) model provides the conceptual and theoretical basis for the development, collection and use of children’s environmental health indicators. This model emphasises the complex relationships between environmental exposures and child health outcomes. Individual exposures can lead to many different health outcomes; specific health outcomes can be attributed to many different exposures. Both exposures and health outcomes – as well as the associations between them – are affected by contextual conditions, such as social, economic or demographic factors. 

The two indicators selected for the Environment domain can readily be fitted into such a framework. They each relate to environmental exposure that has known implications for a number of child health outcomes, and they are each strongly related to socioeconomic conditions.

Indicators
Children living with a parent who smokes is about childhood exposure to secondhand smoke as well as exposure to unhealthy adult behaviour that is a known risk factor for adolescent take-up of cigarette smoking. The cost of smoking is borne disproportionately by the most disadvantaged children and their families. Eliminating this environmental hazard will do much improve the health and wellbeing of New Zealand’s children while they are still young and as they grow into adulthood.

Household crowding was selected for the 2004 edition of this report and has been updated to 2006 and extended to cover the twenty-year period from 1986. Based on the Canadian National Occupancy Standard, it is an indicator of the adequacy of the built environment for the health and wellbeing of our children and young people.

Children living with a parent who smokes
Definition
The proportion of dependent children under the age of 18 living with at least one parent who is a regular smoker (smoking one or more cigarettes a day).
Relevance
Parental smoking and related behaviours are key determinants of adolescent tobacco smoking. Parents who smoke are more likely to give their children high amounts of pocket money, to allow smoking in the home, and to provide cigarettes to their children, all of which are risk factors for daily smoking by New Zealand adolescents. Parental smoking has been identified as a major factor explaining the increased smoking risk among Māori and Pacific adolescents, while ethnic differences in socio-economic status also contribute. The financial costs of smoking impact disproportionately on children in low-income families and increase hardship among sole parents. Exposure to cigarette smoke is associated with a number of adverse health outcomes for children, including sudden infant death syndrome, glue ear, asthma, other respiratory problems, and meningococcal disease.
Current level and trends 
At the time of the 2006 Census, 33 percent of dependent children under the age of 18 lived with at least one parent who was a regular smoker. This was lower than the proportion in 1996 (38 percent).
Ethnic differences
Māori children (56 percent) were by far the most likely to be living with a parent who regularly smoked in 2006. They were followed by Pacific children (45 percent), European children (30 percent), children of Other ethnic groups (21 percent) and Asian children (18 percent). The pattern by ethnicity was the same five years earlier.
 
Between 1996 and 2006, the proportion of dependent children living with a parent who regularly smoked fell for children of all ethnic groups. The decline was greater for European, Asian and Other ethnic group children than for Māori and Pacific children.

Figure EN1.1 Proportion of dependent children under 18 living with at least one parent who is a regular smoker, by ethnic group, 1996, 2006
Source: Statistics New Zealand, unpublished census data
Differences by family type and age
Children in one-parent families (44 percent) were much more likely than children in two-parent families (30 percent) to be living with a parent who regularly smoked in 2006. The difference was greatest at younger ages. Babies under one year living in a one-parent family (52 percent) were almost twice as likely as those living in a two-parent family (28 percent) to live with a parent who regularly smoked.

Figure EN1.2 Proportion of dependent children with at least one parent who is a regular smoker, by family type and age of child, 1996, 2006

Source: Statistics New Zealand, unpublished census data

Over the decade to 2006, the fall in the proportion of children living with a parent who regularly smoked was greater for children in two-parent families than for those in one-parent families. Pacific children in one-parent families were the only group for which the proportion living with a parent who smoked did not fall.

Table EN1.1 Proportion (%) of dependent children under 18 living with at least one parent who is a regular smoker, by ethnic group and family type, 1996, 2006  
Year, Ethnic group of child	Family type	
	One parent family	Two-parent family	Total families	
				
1996				
European	45	32	35	
Māori	61	58	59	
Pacific peoples	45	48	47	
Asian	20	23	23	
Other	31	30	30	
Total	48	35	38	
				
2006				
European	41	27	30	
Māori	59	53	56	
Pacific peoples	46	44	45	
Asian	15	18	18	
Other	18	22	21	
Total	44	30	33	
Source: Statistics New Zealand, unpublished census data

Household crowding
Definition
The proportion of children under 15 years and young people aged 15–24 years living in crowded households. A crowded household is defined as a household that requires one or more additional bedrooms, as defined by the Canadian National Occupancy Standard.
Relevance
New Zealand research has found a strong association between household crowding and the prevalence of certain infectious diseases such as meningococcal disease, acute rheumatic fever and tuberculosis, with the association most marked among young children. Crowding is also associated with other measures of socioeconomic deprivation such as low income, unemployment, low education level and fewer material resources such as cars and telephones. Children living in a crowded house are almost twice as likely to have a smoker in the household as children in a house that is not crowded. International research has found an association between residential crowding and psychological distress, including that of children.
Current level and trends
In 2006, 17 percent of children under 15 years (136,563 children) and 17 percent of young people aged 15–24 years (89,076) were living in crowded households. 

The proportion of children under 15 living in crowded households remained fairly steady at around 16 to 17 percent between 1986 and 2006. Among 15–24 year olds the proportion living in crowded households fell from 21 percent to 16 percent between 1986 and 2001 but increased again slightly, to 17 percent, in 2006.

For the total population aged under 25 years, the proportion living in crowded households fell from 19 percent in 1986 to 16 percent in 2001, then increased slightly to 17 percent in 2006.

Figure EN2.1 Proportion of the population aged under 25 years living in crowded households, by age group, 1986–2006

Source: Statistics New Zealand, New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings.

Age and sex differences
Children and young people are more likely than older New Zealanders to be living in crowded conditions. In 2006, 17 percent of the population under 25 years of age lived in households requiring one or more bedrooms, compared with 7 percent of the population aged 25 years and over.

Children aged 10–14 (15 percent) were slightly less likely than those aged under 10 and young people aged 15–24 (both 17 percent) to be living in crowded households in 2006.

There were almost no sex differences in the propensity of children and young people to be living in crowded households in 2006.

Table EN2.1 Proportion (%) of children and young people living in crowded households, by age and sex, 2006
Sex	Age group	
	0–9 years	10–14 years	15–24 years	Total under 25 years	
Male 	17.1	15.2	17.0	16.7	
Female 	17.2	15.5	17.1	16.8	
Total 	17.2	15.3	17.0	16.7	
Source: Statistics New Zealand, New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings 2006.

Ethnic differences
Pacific children and young people are far more likely than those of other ethnic groups to be living in crowded households. For example, in 2006, 46 percent of Pacific children under 15 years lived in crowded households, compared with 28 percent of Māori children, 22 percent of Asian children and 8 percent of European children. The pattern was similar among 15–24 year olds.

Levels of crowding improved between 1986 and 2006 for European, Māori and Pacific children and young people. They also improved among Asian young people aged 15–24 but for Asian children aged under 15 there was an increase in crowding between 1986 and 1996 before it fell back to the earlier level. Among those ethnic groups combined into the Other category, the proportion living in crowded housing increased (from 25 percent to 27 percent for those under 15 years; and from 29 percent to 32 percent for those aged 15–24).

Table EN2.2 Proportion (%) of children and young people living in crowded households, by age and ethnic group, 1986–2006
Age group, year	Ethnic group	
	European	Māori	Pacific people	Asian	Other	Total	
Under 15 years							
1986	10.9	37.5	50.8	22.7	25.2	17.4	
1996	10.1	30.3	48.1	24.8	29.0	17.3	
2006	8.0	27.8	46.3	22.3	26.8	16.5	
15–24 years							
1986	15.4	42.5	58.9	31.8	28.9	21.3	
1996	10.1	28.8	50.2	23.5	31.8	16.5	
2006	8.5	27.8	48.3	24.0	32.2	17.0	
Source: Statistics New Zealand, New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings.
Regional differences
The proportion of children living in crowded households varies widely across New Zealand’s 73 territorial authority areas, with the highest levels in Manukau City (southern Auckland). In 2006, 35 percent of children under 15 years and 33 percent of 15–24 year olds living in Manukau City lived in crowded households, compared with just four percent and six percent, respectively, of children and young people in the South Island district of Selwyn. Other territorial authorities with high proportions of children and young people living in crowded households included Opotiki (31 percent; 30 percent); Kawerau (27 percent; 29 percent); the Far North (27 percent; 26 percent), Wairoa (26 percent; 27 percent); Porirua (24 percent and 27 percent); and Auckland City and Papakura (both 25 percent in each group).