Preface
New Zealand Family and Household Projections presents the methodology and results of the first official set of family and household projections derived by Statistics New Zealand. These projections have been produced at the national level, from 2001 (base) to 2021, at one-year intervals.
These family and household projections provide an indication of the likely change in the future numbers of families and households in New Zealand. Such information is valuable for researchers, planners, administrators and others interested in service provision and policy-making relating to New Zealand living arrangements, families and households.
Although household projections have been produced regularly by Statistics New Zealand, the new family and household projections are different in several respects. These new projections utilise a ‘propensity’ method rather than a ‘household head’ method as used in previous household projections. The propensity method applies living arrangement type rates to the estimated and projected populations to give population by living arrangement type, sex and single year of age (to 90 years and over).
The new projections include, for the first time, projections of families by broad family type and projections of broad household types. The broad family types comprise: couple without children families; two-parent families; and one-parent families, and include projections of families with dependent children. The broad household types include family households (including multi-family households) as well as non-family households such as one-person households and other multiperson households.
The family and household projections adopt the resident population concept and therefore take account of people who usually live in New Zealand but were not enumerated by census, because they were, for example, temporarily overseas at the time of the census.
Given the nature of the family and household projections methodology and the general uncertainty about demographic projections, the results presented here should be analysed and interpreted with due caution.