Old age outrage

One of the areas of ministry - or lack of it - that has come increasingly to my attention during my time in National Mission is the way in which many elderly people are regarded as surplus to requirements in the average congregation. This isn't true of all churches - some of whom do very well in regard to older people - but it is true of many churches were the focus is almost entirely on children, youth, young families....

Here's a quote from an essay entitled, Fitness and Outrage, by Sherwin B. Nuland, who is himself now 80 years of age:

“Too many of the elderly do not have the family or the communal attachments necessary to feel valued; too many are widowed or otherwise alone; too many live in surroundings where they are essentially without the companionship necessary to stimulate a mind in danger of deteriorating. Too many are so poor or unable to obtain social services that they cannot remain in their own homes, and are certainly without the wherewithal to live in an upscale retirement community or assisted-living facility. Too many have passed their entire lives without the level of education and general knowledge necessary to take advantage of what is available to their peers raised in circumstances of greater awareness. For the vast majority of such men and women, so often socially and even physically more or less isolated, modern gerontology and its discoveries might as well not exist.”

Bit of a rant

Statistics NZ released figures this week showing that the rate of solo parent homes is projected to increase from 31% to 36% over the next 20 years. The media ignored it, and the politicians said nothing...

Here are the details: The number of one-parent families is projected to increase from 219,000 in 2006 to 267,000 in 2031. At the same time, the number of two-parent families is projected to decrease from 480,000 to 467,000.

Okay, there are solo parents who fit in that category through the death of their partner, which will reduces the shock factor of these figures somewhat. There are solo parents who fit in the category through no fault of their own, and who do a remarkable job in the circumstances. And of course there are solo fathers.

The concern are those solo parents who are in that place by choice, especially women who have a range of partners over a succession of years and no stable male figure in the household. Whatever the politically correct brigade may think, having a stable father-figure in a family unit is more than valuable, it's vital.

The statistics relating to boys in particular, (but also to girls), who grow up without a father in the home, don't make good reading: crime, mental health issues, emotional difficulties in relationships and more can frequently be traced back to the lack of a father.

And lest it be said that I'm just talking stats here, my own experience is one of growing up without a father. My parents separated when I was three for reasons I only partly know about - and that was the last time I saw my father. Over the period of my childhood and teenage years, I heard from him only once or twice, and that was almost by accident. In fact, I never knew I had a living father until I was in my early teens.

I lived with my mother, her parents and two uncles. My grandfather, who was a wonderful father figure, died suddenly when I was 8 or 9 (and died in hospital after collapsing at home - I never saw him again after the ambulance took him away and I don't think I was even taken to the funeral). The uncles were too intent on making their own way in the world, and were not much cop for me in the father-figure department.

The missing father eventually left a hole in my emotional life that took years to heal. (One of the most healing aspects was coming to know God as Father.) In my twenties I obsessed about not having got to know my biological father (he died when I was about 18). This left me not only with longstanding regrets on my side that I hadn't tried to contact him, but an underlying anger that he hadn't kept in touch with me - and a sense of betrayal.

My situation was actually one in which it was possible to survive the lack of a father. Many boys are not in a situation that has the positives I was given.

How do we change this here in NZ and elsewhere? We have to keep bringing the issue before the public, have to ignore those who say that fathers don't matter, and, while agreeing that there are abusive fathers and that they certainly do damage, have to keep on saying that good, plain, honest down-to-earth fathers are an absolute necessity for children growing up.

Photo from Flickr.com

Changes in marriage

One of the blogs I now read regularly is GetReligion, where several different writers analyze the (mostly American) news reports, looking at how the journalists deal with aspects of faith and religion. Some journalists do very well; many don't have much idea about the faith aspects of their stories and either ignore them, or slide past them, or make a hash of them.

In one of the most recent posts, Mollie [Hemingway, I think] discusses a recent spate of articles on the lack of marriage in middle America and the stability (mostly) of marriage in educated America. (You need to read the piece to understand these classifications.)

She ends her post this way:

There are so many more interesting angles to explore. What does this data mean for houses of worship? How are local congregations dealing with the institutional decline of marriage? How can congregations most help their communities as families struggle around them? What other stories are the mainstream media missing while they devote so many pages and stories to encouraging changes in marriage laws to include same-sex partners?

The first few questions in that paragraph caused me to prick up my (blogging) ears: these are the questions that New Zealand churches should (or must already) be asking too - the increase in the number of children born in de facto marriages here is substantial, and no doubt there are families in some churches in this situation. Twenty/thirty years ago it would have been possible to encourage the parents to get married relatively easily. Now things are considerably more difficult. Should ministers encourage parents to get married? Do the parents see a need to get married?

No doubt there are clergy already dealing with these issues. What are your approaches?

It's all about Mana

Family Planning NZ has picked up an overseas idea and made it their own (think this is called ‘contextualization’ – one word I’ve learned while working at National Mission! LOL).
They’re calling the programme It’s about Mana, and it’s intended for young men – those in the later stages of schooling and beyond – with the hope that they’ll question traditional male values: the idea that real men are always in control (but have uncontrollable sex drives); deserve entitlement or respect, and that women are objects, amongst other things. Holding these ideas up to the light is intended to work against relationship violence. “If young men are involved in discussions that show that most men don’t use or condone violence towards women, this will make it harder for violent individuals to justify it as normal behaviour.”
Read more on the Family Planning site or join the Facebook page.

And more on the same topic. There’s a very interesting report from the International Planned Parenting Federation called Men are Changing. While personally I’ve had some qualms in regard to the work of the IPPF over the years, this report is essentially positive and shows that a great deal of important work is being done in regard to the way men see themselves and their relationships to women - and other men. The interesting thing about this report is the case studies for once don’t come from European or North American contexts (there is a Canadian one) but from African, South American and Asian countries.
You can download the pdf here.

Get thyself a spiritual director!

Len Hjalmarson writes: If you are in paid ministry, or if you are overseeing a group of people and have oversight of their souls (you may be a CEO but your heart is pastoral), find a spiritual director. For your sake, for the sake of your family, for the good of the kingdom – do it.

He goes on to quote Henri Nouwen, (writing in Reaching Out):

“At least part of the reason for this lack .. is that we ourselves do not appeal to our fellow human beings in such a way as to invite them to become our spiritual leaders. If there were no students constantly asking for good teachers, there would be no good teachers. The same is true for spiritual guides. There are many men and women with great spiritual sensitivity whose talents remain dormant because we do not make an appeal to them. Many would, in fact, become wise and holy for our sake if we would invite them to assist us in our search for the prayer of our heart.

“A spiritual director does not need to be more intelligent or more experienced than we are. If is important that he or she accepts our invitation to lead us closer to God and enters with us into the scriptures and into the silence where God speaks to both of us… Often we will discover that those who we ask for help will indeed receive the gift to help us and grow with us toward prayer.” (p 98)

Your Most Important Conversation

Gordon McDonald, who probably knows as much as anyone about what happens when you don't spend enough time with God, has written an article for the Leadership Journal called, Your Most Important Conversation.

Here's a short extract.

Among my most frequently-asked questions to men and women in leadership who are struggling with spiritual malaise is, "What does an ideal week look like for you? Describe for me the priority activities that fill your week." Usually, I hear a list of leader-like activities with which we are all familiar: staff meetings, sermon study, consultations with church leaders, training seminars, budget meetings, counseling appointments, long-range planning functions. Sometimes there is comment about physical exercise (that's good) and family functions (that's even "gooder"). But what is missing all too often? Any allusion to a personal Sabbath: those times for activities that enlarge and cleanse the soul, times for inner conversation.

"What do you do in Sabbath time?" I am sometimes asked. I disappoint, I suspect, when I evade the formulaic answer. I discarded the gimmicks a long time ago. They didn't work for me. What became more important was outcomes. What do I do? Simple: whatever it takes for a renewed sense of conversion to Christ, a deeper awareness of the biblical way, an assurance that God's grace and power remain with me.

When I ask many leaders if there is time in their calendars for the pursuit of such outcomes, I get these kinds of responses:

• I'm just too busy.
• I don't have the slightest idea what I'd do if I took the time.
• My mind is too full of thought; I can't concentrate.
• I'm an extrovert. Being alone, being quiet, reflecting is not my thing.
• I don't get any immediate result out of doing it.
• It's boring.

Amongst other things, McDonald discusses William Wilberforce's habit of taking a weekly Sabbath - not so much the day as the intention. Apart from McDonald's own list of questions he might ask himself at such a time, he lists the much shorter one set out by John Newton, Wilberforce's great friend and pastor:

* To begin and end every day with God.
* To peruse Scriptures with a diligence and attention suited to the dignity of the subject.
* To spend the Sabbath entirely with the Lord.
* To choose for my companions only good people from whom I may derive some improvement.
* To become all things to all men in order that I may save some.

These aren't just Sabbath statements, and they may not be something everyone can grasp hold of in their current life situation. However, between the list that McDonald offers [see the article itself], and the list that Newton gives, there is certainly plenty to consider.

"The battle is won in the secret places of the will before God," wrote Oswald Chambers. "Never first in the external world. … Nothing has power over the (person) who has fought out the battle before God and won there."

Obama on fatherhood

As someone who, like Barack Obama, grew up without a father, I appreciate what he had to say in his Father's Day speech this year. Here's a couple of extracts.

"Here’s the key message I think all of us want to send today to fathers all across the country: Our children don’t need us to be superheroes. They don’t need us to be perfect. They do need us to be present. They need us to show up and give it our best shot, no matter what else is going on in our lives. They need us to show them -- not just with words, but with deeds -- that they, those kids, are always our first priority. Those family meals, afternoons in the park, bedtime stories; the encouragement we give, the questions we answer, the limits we set, the example we set of persistence in the face of difficulty and hardship -- those things add up over time, and they shape a child’s character, build their core, teach them to trust in life and to enter into it with confidence and with hope and with determination.”
"Now, I can’t legislate fatherhood -- I can’t force anybody to love a child. But what we can do is send a clear message to our fathers that there is no excuse for failing to meet their obligations. What we can do is make it easier for fathers who make responsible choices and harder for those who avoid those choices. What we can do is come together and support fathers who are willing to step up and be good partners and parents and providers ... But ultimately, we know that the decision to be a good father -- that’s up to us, each of us, as individuals. It’s one that men across this country are making every single day -- attending those school assemblies; parent-teacher conferences; coaching soccer, Little League; scrimping and saving, and working that extra shift so that their children can go to college."

President Obama's speech marks the one-year anniversary of the new national conversation on fatherhood and personal responsibility that the White House launched across the country. "Fatherhood" was also one of the key task forces of the Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Obama said that each forum posed a simple question: "How can we as a nation - not just the government, but businesses and community groups and concerned citizens - how can we all come together to help fathers meet their responsibilities to our families and communities?"

Photo by Llima Orosa

The return of the multi-generational household

The following paragraph indicates an interesting trend in family households, which may also be increasing in New Zealand.

The number of Americans living in two-adult-generation households grew from 28 million in 1980 to 49 million in 2008, with 25% of Baby Boomers expecting to live with their parents again; and the recession has accelerated the trend. Supporting both parents and children takes a major emotional and financial toll, with the average yearly cost of supporting an aging parent at $5,534 and the yearly cost of supporting adult children at $7,660. But 76% of those helping a relative say they enjoy it, and 54% have bonded with their loved one more than they anticipated.

The first sentence is a bit unclear, but basically we're talking here about a member of the grandparent generation moving back in with one of their children and that child's family. Or the three-generational group moving into a different house together.

We were blessed when our children were growing up to have my mother living with us. She had her own living area upstairs, her own bathroom and a small kitchen. The enormous benefits this gave to our children are too many to count. It was also great to have a built-in babysitter (!)

However, this won't work in every situation, and it can be an awful burden for some. Still, my intuition is that it's healthier for the older person to live with their family. Even older people living in their own homes are healthier than older people living in rest homes. People who go into rest homes seem to deteriorate faster than those who don't.

It turns out my intuition is backed up in the report the paragraph at the top of this post relates to. One of the findings was:

Older adults who live alone are less healthy and they more often feel sad or depressed than their counterparts who live with a spouse or with others. These correlations stand up even after controlling for demographic factors such as gender, race, age, income and education.

The report is called: The Return of the Multi-Generational Household. It is presented by the PewResearch Centre, and came out in March 2010.

Photo by Dianna, on Flickr.com

Prostitution in New Zealand

As usual, it seems, New Zealand has followed a trend only to find that everyone else is starting to change their mind....

Family First NZ says that the Auckland police admission that underage prostitution is on the increase in the city is yet more evidence that the National government must immediately repeal the flawed prostitution law. “This latest review has found girls as young as 12 prostituting themselves in central Auckland, and a similar investigation in South Auckland in 2008 found 16 teenagers aged between 13 and 16 prostituting themselves on the streets of South Auckland,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

“Politicians who voted for this ideologically flawed bill which decriminalised prostitution should hang their heads in shame as they have normalized the behaviour amongst at-risk teenagers. They have also condemned more men and women to this destructive industry. Prostitution is not the oldest profession – it is the oldest oppression.

And in an interesting reversal of a trend:

Bulgaria is only the latest European country to shift its approach to prostitution. Finland last year made it illegal to buy sex from women brought in by traffickers, and Norway is on the verge of imposing an outright ban on purchasing sex. Even in Amsterdam, the city government has proposed shutting down more than a quarter of the famed storefront brothels in the red-light district. And in the Czech Republic and the three Baltic republics, attempts at legalization similar to the Bulgarian one have been turned back.

Connecting

One Plus One is a long-established family relationships counselling service in the UK. It's now on the web and offers resources, information and help to those in this area of need.

However, there's another side to the site, one that's more innovative and which is helping a great number of couples to come to terms with difficulties in the marriage or relationship. This side is called The Couple Connection, and it consists of three primary areas: Check it out, Talk it out and Work it out.

The first area is open to all readers and begins the process of assisting with the relationship by asking a number of basic questions to ascertain where the reader is at. It also warns when the site won't be of help and where professional assistance will be needed.

The second section is for people to write something about their relationship: how they're feeling, what's troubling them, whether their partner is being unfaithful and a good deal more. Other readers can comment on these, and there are always a number of trained counsellors reading through these postings to supply more specific help.

Finally there is the Work it out section. This is a completely private area for each reader, and acts as a place where the writer can post all manner of feelings, rubbish, junk, stuff that's hurting them, that's bugging them and much more. It's a place of catharsis, and many readers say that as they go back and read through this material, they begin to see what the real issues are, and can begin to act on them rather than on the peripheral stuff.

In one way the site is similar to the old 'chat over the fence' approach that probably saved far more marriages than we'll ever know. But by bringing anonymity into the mix, and providing hundreds of other people to offer supportive advice, this makes innovative use of the technology now available.

Why do bullies bully?

Bullying is an issue in the church as in the business world. It may be the minister (and his family) who are being bullied, or the minister himself who's doing the bullying. In an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled Create a Bully-Free Workplace, Nathanael Fast writes:

Among targets of bullying, 40% never told their employers and, of those who did, 62% reported that they were ignored. This suggests there's a significant opportunity to increase profits and beat the competition by eliminating the prevalence of workplace bullying in your organization. But how?

The first step is to identify the root of the problem. A set of recent studies conducted with Serena Chen, a psychologist at UC Berkeley, may provide some insight. We found that power is partly to blame. However, in contrast to the old adage that "power corrupts," giving people power did not turn them into bullies. Rather, it was the simultaneous pairing of power with feelings of inadequacy that led people to lash out. In our studies, the power holders who felt personally incompetent became aggressive, not because they were power hungry or had domineering personalities but because they were trying to overcome ego threat. Put simply, bullying is a cheap way to nurse a wounded ego. [my italics]

The need for support

And one more piece from the huge Rowland Croucher collection on stress and burnout in ministry. This one was written (originally as a letter) by Wayne Dobratz, Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Hampton, Iowa. I can't tell you how long ago, however, as there doesn't appear to be a date on the article.

He confirms some things Croucher has said in a previous article about the family of origin having a considerable impact on pastors, but also says a couple of other significant things:

Don't stop writing [he's talking to Rowland here] about the need for a small sharing group. We clergy try so hard to hide our own emotional needs all the while attempting to bail out a dozen sinking boats alongside of our own leaky craft. My problem right now is that I left behind just about everything you prescribe when I changed churches more than 4 years ago. Where does a Pastor turn when there is no group of "wounded healers" to which he can turn?

and

The mentor is so very important. I have a friend who is about 20 years older than I. Though he may not fit the exact definition of a mentor, the needed sharing/talking takes place when we are together. Every Pastor needs this.

Supervision for pastors is high on the agenda in New Zealand....but how many are availing themselves of it - or can?

Getting the stats right...?

If you look on the Net for the phrase, 1500 ministers leave the ministry every month, you'll find result after result saying that this is a sad statistic and what can be done about it. (This is a US stat, of course.)

The other stat that seems to go along with it says 7000 churches close each year.

The only problem is, no one seems able to quote where these stats come from.

They're ascribed variously to George Barna and co, or Focus on the Family, in the latter case dating back to 1998. According to a rough calculation this would mean 18,000 ministers were leaving the ministry every year, and, if the 1998 figure is correct, 216,000 ministers would now be ex-ministers. 84,000 churches would now have closed. (Though in some versions of the stats, 4,000 churches open each year!)

Can these figures really be true?

I would dearly like to see the original figures, find out who they came from and what they were based on. In the meantime, this post will no doubt add to the search results on Google, almost all of which assume without any reference that these stats are correct.

Update...check out the comment from the Barna Group that appeared after this was posted yesterday.

Young Pacific Island Fathers and Mental Health

Mental health well-being amongst fathers within the Pacific Island Families Study, by El-Shadan Tautolo, Philip J. Schluter and Gerhard Sundborn

This article investigates the prevalence of potential psychological disorder amongst a cohort of primarily Pacific fathers in New Zealand over their child’s first 6-years of life.

The analysis is based on data collected at 12-months, 2-years and 6-years after birth during the Pacific Islands Families Study, and uses the 12-item General Health Questionnaire
to assess the prevalence of psychological distress amongst participant fathers at each measurement point.

The majority of fathers within the study reported good overall health and well-being. ‘Symptomatic’ disorders were initially low at 12 months (3.9%) but increased significantly at 2 years (6.6%) and at 6 years (9.8%). Other factors, such as employment, smoking and drinking, and marital status were taken into account, and were seen to have an effect on the mental health of the father.
It is finally being acknowledged after many years that the mental health and wellbeing of fathers is of particular importance to the function and wellbeing of the family.

Pacific peoples experience higher rates of mental illness than New Zealanders overall with the 12-month prevalence of Pacific peoples experiencing a mental disorder being 25% compared with 20.7% of the total New Zealand population.

There is a need for further research in mental health amongst Pacific Islanders, particularly amongst specific groups such as youth and males in general. However, this perspective is only reflective of the situation amongst New Zealand based Pacific people, and may not represent the situation amongst Pacific people living in the Pacific Islands.

This article is available in full online.

Photo of a father and son in Vanuatu by Bernard Oh

The old are taking over

The issues of Ageing - or Aging, as blogger insists it's spelt - are often a topic of posts on this blog, and I've just come across an article in the Guardian in which ageing is discussed (partly in a tongue-in-cheek style) by Zoe Williams. She blames election time on the 'sudden interest' in the topic, but that aside, there are some points to note in her piece that are relevant to the NZ scene - election time or no. Some quotes:

....it is an unarguable fact that the population is getting older; the impact is already being felt in dementia cases, which at 822,000 are 17% higher than previously estimated.

It is assumed that over-65s live in some condition of infirmity, when the most recent Health Survey for ­England ­suggests that the opposite is the case – the most commonly declared state of health, in any of the five age groups between 65 and death, is "no reported problems" (and that includes men!). So, as life expectancy rises and health improves at the early stages of ­pensionable age, ever more people will be ­working well into their 60s – ­transforming the equation of who's a burden and who isn't.

...a) there are more over-65s in this country than there are under-18s; and b) pensioners, for all their rude health, do cost more on account of their pensions – in 2005/06, £15,024 was spent on the average pensioner, £9,454 on the average child and £6,469 on the average person of working age.

Happiness is as happiness does

According to the latest UMR survey, the happiest men in the country are in the Nelson/Marlborough region, and the happiest women come from the Bay of Plenty. Wellingtonians, however, are the least happy people in the country.

Interestingly, people on less than $20,000 a year are slightly happier than those earning between $70,000 and $100,00. People earning over $100,000 are the happiest of the lot. People in the middle income brackets ($30-70,000), however, are the least happy. (Which probably shouldn't come as much of a surprise: they'll be the ones trying to bring up a family, pay off a mortgage and so on.)

Wellington.Scoop reports: The key things that make people happy are their relationships with their family and friends and their job. For women, the relationship with their family and children is a far more significant factor in their happiness than it is for men. However, for men their relationship with their spouse or partner, control over their life or destiny, recreation time and hobbies are more important than they are for women.

UMR finds that people are less happy than they were when the previous survey was done in 2007/8, and that overall, females are happier than males. People in mid-life are less happy than the young or old (which is hardly a revelation - who has all the responsibility?!), and ethnically, Maori and Europeans were the happiest groups, with Asians the least happy. (However, with a large number of people classifying themselves as 'other,' ethnically, this area of the survey is somewhat skewed.)

Another not-surprising point: widow(ers) and married people were happier than single and divorced, though there might be a certain irony in the fact that widowers were little happier than widows, and married women were a little happier than married men. Curiously women in de facto relationships were happier than men in the same boat. Which seems almost at odds with how people in these relationships are generally viewed.

People living without children are happier than those living with children. At first this seems a point that doesn't bode well for our future, until you realise that it's the lack of dependent children that makes people happier.

And just to prove that we're a quirky lot: Labour voters are happier than National voters. Go figure.

UMR comes to this conclusion: If you want to keep happy through the recession – socialise, keep in close touch with family or friends, have an interest in sports, a hobby or the arts and feel good about yourself.

Where would we fit in, as a Church, on the happiness scale?

Photo by Jill Greenseth from 'Four Happy People'

Take the Time: Value Older People

I've written a few times on this blog about the need to remember that older people have great value, not just in the church, but in society in general.

Now Family Violence in tandem with Age Concern has produced a pamphlet to help people review their attitudes to the elderly, especially older members of their own family. One one hand it shows up the manipulations of some adult children, the stubbornness of the elderly, and the way in which grandchildren can sometimes be more perceptive than their parents about the older generation. On the other hand, it shows the need for creativity when it comes to helping older people, and the need to remember that they still like (and have every right) to make decisions about their own lives.

Simply produced, with some excellent colour photos, this is a handy booklet to put on your church information table. There's also a summary of a research report on elder abuse and neglect here.

The death of an old person...

"The death of an old person is like the burning of a library." So wrote Alex Haley, the author of Roots, and other stories of African origins. ( Or, if he didn't write it, he 'borrowed' it from his African past, as the words are often thought to be an African proverb. )

It's quoted in an article on caring for old people - I make no apology for this being nine years old (nothing on the Net ever grows old!) - called Aging and Ageism: Can You Have One Without the Other? by Karen Henderson.

The author looks at our attitudes to old people: Everyone gets old. None of us should be surprised or angry; it's a fact of life. But what's also a fact of life is this: we don't treat older people as people. We treat them as a commodity to be used, abused and disposed of as we see fit. We somehow learn to raise our children; we try to give our pets a good life. Why can't we extend the same efforts to our older people?

The article isn't long, but it has plenty of good things to say about older/elderly people (they're always people who are older than me, by the way!) and the way we think about them, and act towards them. It's probably addressed to the inbetween generation - those who have elderly parents and growing children - but it's applicable to anyone, anywhere.

Photo courtesy of Flickr.com

Marriage and more

The latest statistics on marriage, civil unions and divorce in New Zealand show a declining rate of divorce, and an increasing number of marriages over the past decade.
And while the marriage rate has retained its demand and relevance, the demand for civil unions has been negligible.
Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ, notes: “The civil unions legislation has proved to be a complete white elephant, despite the claims by the previous government that it would supposedly strengthen human rights and support the choices of apparently 300,000 people who were not married but lived in stable relationships.”
According to Statistics NZ data released today, there have been only 1,646 civil unions registered between April 2005 and March 2009 . These comprised 1,330 same-sex unions (594 male and 736 female) (80%), 312 opposite-sex unions and just four transfers from marriage.

So what are the actual stats for the marriages and divorces - have we reason to celebrate? Here's what NZ Stats says:

• DIVORCES; The Family Court granted 9,700 divorces in 2008, slightly below the annual average of 10,000 for the last decade. About one-third of New Zealanders who married in 1983 had divorced before their silver wedding anniversary (25 years).
• MARRIAGES: There were 21,900 marriages registered in 2008, compared with 21,500 in 2007. The increase was due to more first marriages, up from 14,400 to 14,800. The number of remarriages remained at 7,100, the same as in 2007.
• MARRIAGE RATE: The general marriage rate (marriages per 1,000 unmarried adults) was 13.7 in 2008, down from 15.6 in 1998. The latest rate is less than one-third of the peak level of 45.5 per 1,000 recorded in 1971.
• CIVIL UNIONS: There were 327 civil unions in 2008: 256 same-sex unions (111 male and 145 female) and 71 opposite-sex unions. Up to 31 December 2008, eight civil unions had been dissolved.
  

The "anti-smacking" law

Family First reports: Almost two years after the passing of the controversial anti-smacking law, more than 80% of NZ’ers still want the law changed and 77% say that the law won’t have any effect on our unacceptable child abuse rate.

These are the key finding of research commissioned by Family First NZ, following on from similar research in 2007 and 2008. The Curia Market Research poll surveyed 1,000 people, and also found huge confusion over the legal effect of the law.

The key findings are:

83% say the law should be changed – only 13% say to keep it as is
77% says the law won’t help reduce the rate of child abuse in NZ
Less than one third of respondents actually understand the law

Here are some graphs provided by Family First to show these results: