Changing family units

Couple without children in New Zealand are expected to surpass two-parent families as the most common household formation by next year, according to Statistics New Zealand figures. National Family and Household Projections released on Monday showed the number of families would increase from an estimated 1.17 million in 26 to 1.46 million in 231. Couples without children would account for the majority of the growth, up from 468, in 26 to 721, in 231. The increasing prevalence of couple-without-children families was mainly due to the large number of people born during the 195s to the early 197s reaching older ages. Most of these couples would have had children who had left the parental home. “The faster growth in the number of families and households is due to the ageing of New Zealand’s population, leading to an increasing proportion of couple-without-children families and one-person households,” population statistics manager Bridget Hamilton-Seymour said.