Identifying the diversity in Australian children’s living arrangements

The dramatic changes in family composition have profound implications for studying relationships of children to other adults in a household. However, methods for studying such relationships have been outpaced by the transformation of families and thus today’s studies, for example, often inaccurately assess whether a child lives with one or two parents and whether he or she is the biological child of those parents. Despite needing increased detail about relationships of children to adults in a household, few surveys gather such data. An exception is the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, which collects detailed household relationship data. Analyses of these data suggest that there is tremendous diversity in Australian children’s living arrangements; that the circumstances of the arrangements are equally varied; and that Australian children are more likely to live with unmarried parents than American children. HILDA could enormously benefit studies of the relationships of children to adults in a household and future family-oriented policies.