Purpose
While Māori over-representation in the care and protection system has been known for some time, this analysis demonstrates the extent to which demographic, socioeconomic, and parent/child characteristics influence this.
This report is an initial quantitative exploration of disparities for tamariki Māori in the care and protection system, intended to generate further discussion and analysis. Two key questions are investigated:
- Is there an impact on the measure of disparity between tamariki Māori and ‘NZ European and Other’ ethnicities when considering the influence of other socioeconomic and parent/child characteristics?
- Considering ethnicity without the influence of other socioeconomic and parent/child characteristics, are tamariki Māori more likely to enter and progress through the care and protection system compared to children of ‘NZ European and Other’ ethnicities?
Methodology
Statistical analysis was performed in the Statistics New Zealand Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI) to explore differences in CYF/Oranga Tamariki involvement for tamariki Māori and children of ‘NZ European and Other’ ethnicities over the 10 year period to 30 June 2019, taking into account demographic, socioeconomic and parent/sibling/child characteristics which are visible in administration datasets and have been suggested by research studies as being associated with care and protection concerns.
Factors allowed for to perform statistical analysis in the IDI, in order to explore differences in CYF/Oranga Tamariki involvement for tamariki Māori and children of ‘NZ European and Other’ ethnicities over the 10 year period to 30 June 2019 include:
• Demographic: Age, gender, ethnicity
• Socioeconomic: Parent income (grouped), education levels, recent and lifetime benefit receipt, socioeconomic decile, frequent address changes
• Parent history: Parent history with Child Youth & Family, recent and lifetime Corrections involvement, mental health / substance usage service contact
• Child history: Child and sibling reports of concern and Police Family Violence Centre notifications to Oranga Tamariki (for examining likelihood of involvement in statutory Care & Protection), Police recorded victimisations, recent emergency department contact, potentially avoidable hospitalisations and mental health service contact, B4 School Check referrals, school disengagement indicators, and (for ages 13+) Police recorded offences.
This analysis focused on first time involvement in reports of concern for children with no prior CYF/Oranga Tamariki interaction, and ‘first time’ movements between successive stages of care and protection involvement for children with recent CYF/Oranga Tamariki interaction.
Key Results
There are disparities between the movement of tamariki Māori and children of ‘New Zealand European and Other’ ethnicities through the care and protection system. Māori are more likely than ‘New Zealand European and Other’ ethnicities to be involved in first reports of concern and first time movements through most stages of the care and protection system.
However, the differences between Māori and children of ‘NZ European and Other’ ethnicities are less when socioeconomic and other factors (eg, parental income, socioeconomic decile, parental Corrections involvement, school disengagement, mental health provider contact) are controlled for.
This work establishes a base for further discussions, analysis and exploration in areas such as:
- Identifying specific areas of focus for case note analysis
- Gathering input from the wider business around potential drivers for disparity (including input from practice experts)
- How we think about and measure disparity and disproportionality
- Refining understanding of the relationships between ethnicity and other socioeconomic variables that have a relationship with ethnicity, to better understand the impact of disparity (from both a perspective of “systemic” and “discretionary” biasing factors).