Abstract
The Life Chances Study is a longitudinal study of children born in inner Melbourne in 1990. The children’s families are diverse and include both low and high-income families and families with a wide range of educational, employment and ethnic backgrounds.
The general aims of the Life Chances Study are to:
This paper presents some of the findings from the most recent round of interviews when the 148 children were aged 6 and were starting school. Case studies are used to illustrate some of the wider findings.
In particular, the paper discusses the key changes in the families’ situations over the children’s lifetimes, including changes in location, changes in family structure and changes in family income. It looks at the characteristics of the families who have remained on low incomes throughout the study. It then explores the differences in experiences, as 6-year-olds, between the children in low-income families and others. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these changes for the children’s future life chances and the challenges for Australian society in improving the life chances of children.
Introduction
The conference’s title, ‘Changing families, challenging futures’, very much sums up the findings and issues of the Life Chances Study which I will discuss today.
Australian families have faced some major changes over the 1990s. Work is less secure for some; radical restructuring of government services has made these less accessible for others. These changes have had very unequal impacts on families.
The Brotherhood of St Laurence’s Life Chances Study provides an opportunity to follow the fortunes of a group of families across the 1990s. It documents the changes in their lives and explores their experiences. The study looks particularly at the lives of those children within the families who were born in 1990 and follows their development.
This paper provides some of the findings from the new report of the study when the children were 6 years old and were in their first or second year of school (Taylor & Macdonald 1998).
This paper will:
1. The changes for the families
The years between 1990 and 1996 brought many changes to the families, reflecting both changes in family life cycle and changes in the wider world.
The three changes for the families that I will look at here include changes in:
Location
The study commenced in 1990 with all children born in selected months in two adjoining inner suburbs of Melbourne. The families reflected the diversity of the populations of these suburbs and included both high and low-income families and families with a wide range of employment, educational and ethnic backgrounds.
By the end of 1996, Life Chances Study families were widely scattered from the two inner suburbs in which they had all lived in 1990:
Many families had moved within Melbourne, but a few were in country Victoria, 7 per cent were living interstate and 8 per cent were overseas during part or all of 1996.
Most families (79 per cent) had moved at least once in the last six years. Almost one-third of the families had moved three or more times in the six years and the families on low incomes were much more likely to have moved often than were more affluent families. Over a third of families (37 per cent) were planning to move house in the next five years.
Already, although only in their first or second year of school, some 17 per cent of children had had the experience of changing schools, in most cases because the family moved house.
For some families moving house was a very satisfactory choice, for others it was unsought and caused major disruption to support networks and children’s schooling.
Family structure
Many of the families had undergone extensive changes since the children’s births in 1990. For example, family changes during the 12 months preceding the 1996 interview had included the death of two parents, the birth of 11 new babies, eight parental separations, five mothers re-partnering, as well as 14 households with relatives moving in or out.
Overall by the time they were 6-year-olds:
Families showed a complex pattern of parental separations and re-partnering. While some sole parents found new partners, other families experienced a number of separations and reunions between the child’s natural parents over the years.
Family income
There has been little change in the proportion of families in the low-income group during the six years of the study (low income is defined as below 120 per cent of the Henderson poverty line). The proportion of families on low incomes was 30 per cent when the children were 6 months old and rose slightly to 32 per cent when they were aged 3 and 6 years.
However, there has been considerable change in the incomes of the families not on low incomes, with fewer families in the medium income group, while those in the highest income group almost doubled (from 18 per cent of all children at 6 months to 35 per cent at 6 years), often as a result of mothers increasing their paid employment.
The changes in income for individual families were more complex than the simple comparison over time indicates. In summary, over the six years of the study:
2. The different experiences of 6-year-olds
The study identified a variety of differences between the situations and experiences of children as 6-year-olds in low-income families and those in more affluent families.
Family characteristics
A significantly higher proportion of children in families on low incomes were found to:
Two-thirds of the children whose families’ incomes were low at all stages were living in non-English-speaking-background (NESB) families from Asia and the Middle East, while one-third had Australian-born parents–most of whom were sole parents.
Health and development
While there were similarities on many measures of health and development, mothers in low-income families were more likely than other mothers to say their children were only in fair health and less likely to say they were in excellent health. They were also more likely to report accidents, dental problems and language problems, including problems with English for children from non-English-speaking homes.
Family relationships, stresses and supports
Mothers in low-income families were significantly more likely than those in families not on low incomes to say:
Fewer mothers in low-income families described themselves as happy and fewer had assistance available from the children’s grandparents, friends or neighbours.
School
Parents in low-income families were more likely to have difficulty affording schooling costs (30 per cent of low-income families and 14 per cent of families not on low incomes).
While parents tried to give priority to these costs, a few children in low-income families were missing out on such things as school excursions, performances or sporting activities because the parents could not afford them.
Indications of the children’s cognitive development and progress at school were given by their results on the Primary Reading Test, the ACER Teacher Assessment of Progress in Reading and the Behavioural Academic Self-Esteem (BASE) Rating Scale.
On average, the children who did well on the measures used were more likely to come from families in which family income was not low, in which parents had tertiary education and in which English was the home language.
The children in families on long-term low incomes had (on average) significantly lower reading scores and BASE scores than the children in families on low incomes at no stage, but their scores did not differ greatly from those of the children in families who were on low incomes at one or two stages.
Neighbourhood and activities
The children in low-income families were significantly less likely than other children to:
The parents in low-income families were more likely to say they could not afford activities they wished to provide for their children.
Effects of family income
There were children from low-income families who were in stable loving families and doing well at school. However, on average, the low-income families were experiencing more difficulties and the children were more likely to be ‘missing out’.
Two children
The following cases illustrate some of the differences in life experiences of two children born at much the same time and place and, as 6-year-olds, both attending their local state schools. (Pseudonyms are used.)
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Amy is the first child of an Australian-born couple in their thirties, who were buying their own house in an inner Melbourne suburb at the time of her birth. Both parents have tertiary qualifications. The father works full-time; the mother part-time. They have remained a two-parent family and are still in the same house. The family has been in the highest income group throughout the study. |
May is the first child born to a Cantonese-speaking couple. Her mother arrived in Australia three years before May’s birth, had limited formal education and did not speak English. By the time May was 6 years old her parents had separated and she was living with her mother whose income was a Sole Parent Pension. Her father was unemployed. May’s family have been on a low income throughout the study. |
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Health and development |
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As a baby Amy’s mother described Amy’s health as excellent and her temperament as happy and relaxed. At 6 years Amy’s health remains excellent, although with some asthma, and she is described as strong-willed. ‘She is thriving physically, socially, intellectually and creatively’. |
At 6 months May’s mother described her health as ‘fair’ and her temperament as difficult. She had frequent colds and serious vomiting and feeding problems. At 6 years the child’s health is still only ‘fair’ and she has serious eczema. ‘I cannot buy expensive medication for her skin rashes … She is too short and thin. I am worried that she cannot cope with study. She is forgetful and cannot concentrate. She does not like to eat.’ She is ‘stubborn, likes her own way’. |
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Family relationships, stresses and supports |
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Her mother describes Amy as very close to her sister and having a good relationship with both of her parents. Amy’s mother identifies her own employment as stressful: ‘I’m having a minor career crisis… This means at times I want the children to behave better than it is realistic to expect and leads me to nagging and yelling more than I should.’ Amy’s mother receives help with the children from Amy’s father, close neighbours and friends and extended family. |
The mother and children left the father. May’s mother comments ‘May was scared when we fought and quarrelled. She was unhappy about these arguments. But sometimes she misses her father too’. Stresses include continuing parental conflict (despite the separation), financial and housing problems. The mother’s stress rebounds on the child: ‘I am irritable and scream at her. She becomes unhappy because of my unhappiness.’ Her mother has no friends or relatives to help her with the exception of one sister who is busy with her own family. |
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Home resources |
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Her parents read Amy stories every night and both help her with her homework. ‘It’s only a home reader at this stage, not too demanding’. |
Her mother reads May stories, but says she cannot help her as much as she would like with her homework because of her limited English. ‘I spend two hours with her teaching her homework, but the effect is not good. But I cannot afford private tuition.’ |
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School |
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‘Amy loves school, is keen to learn to read and write, is enthusiastic about all the activities and has a group of seven to eight close friends.’ Amy’s reading scores are above average. |
May is in grade one, her second year of school, but has had three changes of school because of moving house three times. Because of the changes, May lost interest in school and the teachers did not pay her much attention. May’s mother spoke to the teacher at the parent—teacher interview about her worries that May had trouble catching up and May has made some improvement since then. Her mother speaks limited English but there were teachers at the school to whom she could speak Cantonese. Her mother says May likes drawing and writing. May’s reading scores are below average. |
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Neighbourhood and activities |
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As a 6-year-old, Amy is still living in the inner suburb where she was born. Her mother sees this as an excellent place to bring up children, because they have many close friends nearby and because of its interest and diversity. Amy often plays with friends and visits family. She has swimming and tennis lessons and has had one family holiday interstate during the year. |
As a 6-year-old, May is living in a high-rise public housing estate. Her mother describes the neighbourhood as average, mentioning drugs and theft, but also good transport and convenient shopping. Of May’s activities her mother says ‘I go with her to visit relatives and to the park. I do not allow her to go the park alone’. May goes to weekend language classes to learn Mandarin. There has been no holiday and her mother would like May to have dancing and piano lessons but cannot afford these. |
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Effects of income |
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Amy’s parents are satisfied with both the amount of time they have with their children and the financial support they can provide: ‘Our combined income means that we are comfortably off and can provide Amy with what she needs’. |
May’s mother says her financial situation has a negative effect on May, ‘I can’t buy her what she needs’, including medication for her skin problems. |
3. The implications of the findings and challenges for the future
Implications of family changes
Major family changes in themselves create challenges for children and their development. Some of the family changes such as moving to a ‘better’ neighbourhood, a parental reunion, or increased family income, could well have positive effects on the children’s lives. However frequent moves, with the associated loss of social networks; setting up blended families; parental separations or loss of family income will often have some negative impact on the children.
Location. The high mobility of low-income families with young children has important implications, particularly for schools, but also for a range of children’s and family services.
Family structure. Over a quarter of the children had experienced parental separation in their first six years and many of these had also experienced re-partnering. This provides a major discontinuity in the lives of many children, one which needs to be taken into account by children’s and family services.
Family income. While some families moved in and out of the low-income group over time, almost one-in-five of the families had remained on low incomes over the six years since the children’s birth. This highlights the importance of adequate income for families over time. Both social security payments and wages need to be adequate on a long-term basis.
Challenges
On average, the findings show that life is tougher for children in low-income families and, again on average, these children are doing less well in their first years of school. The findings point to the importance of resourcing schools well in order to give children the potential to catch up at the beginning of school. For example, schools must be resourced to:
Two of the broader challenges for public policy from the findings are to:
The poem which provides this paper’s title concludes: ‘But now I am six, I’m as clever and clever. So I think I’ll be six now for ever and ever.’
But we know this is not to be: the world will not stand still and challenging futures await these children. The task for the wider Australian society is to ensure optimal conditions are created in which all our children can develop to meet the challenges they will face.
Reference
Taylor, J & Macdonald, F 1998, Life at six: life chances and beginning school, Brotherhood of St Laurence, Melbourne.
Acknowledgments
The most recent stage of the study has been supported by a Research and Development Grant from the Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services for which we are most grateful. As each stage builds on those before, we wish to acknowledge again the support we have received for earlier stages of the study from the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation and from the Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and Population Research and the George Adams Estate.