Family Data from the Youth Family Data from the Youth Connectedness ProjectConnectedness Project

Jan Pryor

Roy McKenzie Centre for the Study of Families - October 2007

1889 parents completed a survey sent home with

them with the information and consent forms.

From these, we ascertained that:

•60.9% were first time families (2 biological

parents in the same household);

•24% were lone parent households;

•10.9% were stepfamily households;

•3.8% were extended family households.

Who completed the Who completed the survey?survey?

Dimensions of family life assessed in the

parents’ questionnaire

•Family cohesion

•Family identity (how much people feel they belong to their family)

•Mutual family activities

•Encouragement of autonomy in children

•Monitoring of children’s activities

•Family conflict levels

THESE DIMENSIONS WERE ALSO ASSESSED IN THE YOUNG PEOPLE

DIFFERENCES IN PARENTS’ AND

YOUNG PEOPLE’S PERCEPTIONS OF

FAMILY DIMENSIONS:

•On all dimensions young people rated

them at lower levels than parents. I. e.

Lower autonomy

Lower cohesion

Lower sense of identity

Fewer mutual activities reported by

youth

Less monitoring

Higher conflict (very small difference)

CHANGES WITH AGE:

•Young people’s assessments of

encouragement of autonomy,

cohesion, family identity, mutual

activities, and monitoring all reduced

in levels with age of young people

•Parents’ assessments of cohesion,

monitoring, and mutual activities

reduced with age, but not conflict,

family identity, or autonomy

FAMILY STRUCTURE DIFFERENCES

• There were consistent, but very minor

differences in family variables and

wellbeing amongst family structural

groups.

• Overall, children in intact families and

their parents reported slightly higher

levels on all family variables than those

in the other groups (lone, step, and

extended).These differences were all

positive.

• It is very likely that these explain the

small differences in outcomes for

children in the different groups i.e.

family processes explain differences in

outcomes as much as or more than

family structure.

IMPORTANCE OF WHOLE-FAMILY IMPORTANCE OF WHOLE-FAMILY

VARIABLESVARIABLES

•Whole-family variables such as sense of family

identity, cohesion, and mutual activities are of

particular interest since they focus on the

family as a group rather than on dyadic

relationships within the family such as parent-

child relationships.

•We found that cohesion and identity were

predictive of wellbeing in young people over

and above the quality of the relationships with

mothers and fathers, although these

relationships partially mediated the

relationship between whole-family variables

and overall wellbeing.

Family cohesion

WELLBEING AND

RELATIONSHIPS WITH

WHOLE FAMILY VARIABLES

Family identity

Ease/confidenceWith father

Ease/confidenceWith mother

WELLBEING

.22**

.18**

.13**

.10**

Family cohesion

LIFE SATISFACTION AND

RELATIONSHIPS WITH

WHOLE FAMILY VARIABLES

Family identity

Ease/confidenceWith father

Ease/confidenceWith mother

LIFE SATISFACTION

.14**

.24**

.12**

.10**

What next?•Families are invited to repeat the

questionnaire this year and next

year

•We have a great deal more

analysis to do

•All our data so far suggest that

families are of continuing and

significant importance to young

people