Sexual orientation
There is limited data available on non-heterosexual young people in New Zealand.(1)
The Youth2000 survey found that 7.8 percent of secondary-school students in New Zealand were either not exclusively, or not at all, attracted to members of the opposite sex.(2) The majority (62.4 percent) of same-sex attracted students reported that they were 13 years old or younger when they first became aware of their orientation, and more than a third (35.2 percent) reported that they were aged 11 or younger. Most students (68.7 percent) who identified as same-sex attracted reported that they had not told people close to them about their sexuality.
Another source of data on non-heterosexual young people in New Zealand is Census data on the composition of couple households. This suggests that the age distribution of same-sex couple households in New Zealand is more youthful than that of opposite-sex couple households.(3) At the time of the 2006 Census, a total of 12 percent of all people living in a same-sex couple were aged under 25 (2.4 percent aged under 20, and 9.6 aged 20 to 24), compared with 7.2 percent of all people living in an opposite-sex couple.
The proportion of individuals living with their same-sex partner who were aged under 25 increased slightly from 2001 to 2006, from 11.4 percent to 12 percent. Over the same period the proportion of individuals living in an opposite-sex couple who were aged under 25 increased from 6.1 percent to 7.2 percent.
Civil Unions
Between April 2005 (when Civil Unions were introduced) and December 2008, 159 young people in New Zealand under the age of 25 were registered as being in a same-sex Civil Union (85 females and 74 males).(4) This represents 6.3 percent of all individuals registered in Civil Unions over that time period. Over the same period, 70 young people under the age of 25 were registered as being in an opposite-sex Civil Union.
Marriages
There were 21,461 marriages in 2006. 7,195 young people aged under 25 were registered as being married. This represents 16.8 percent of all individuals registered as married in that year.(5)
Of males aged 16-19, 99.5 percent had never been married, and of males aged 20-24 94.9 percent had never been married. Of females aged 16-19, 99.1 percent had never been married, and of females aged 20-24, 90 percent had never married.(6) The difference in the rate of marriage between the two genders may reflect the fact that women tend to marry at a younger age than men. In 2008, the median age at first marriage was 29.9 and 28.2 years for men and women, respectively – up from 28.1 and 26.1 years in 1996.
Notes
1. A useful discussion on the challenges associated with collecting data on non-heterosexual young people can be found in Savin-Williams, Ritch C. (2001). “A Critique of Research on Sexual-Minority Youth.” Journal of Adolescence, 24: 5-13.
2.The Youth2000 survey found that a total of 7.8 percent of secondary-school-aged students were either not exclusively, or not at all, attracted to members of the opposite sex. 0.7 percent of all students were attracted to the same sex, 3 percent were attracted to both sexes, and 1.7 percent were not attracted to either sex. 2.3 percent were unsure.
3. This could be influenced by the fact that younger people living in same-sex couples are more likely to disclose their same-sex-relationship status than older people living in same-sex couples. This was a finding of research undertaken by Statistics New Zealand in 2003 to assess the possible inclusion of a question on sexual orientation in the 2006 Census questionnaire. See UMR Research (2003), Sexual Orientation Focus Group Research: A Qualitative Study. Wellington: Statistics New Zealand, p. 55.
5. Statistics New Zealand, Demographic Trends 2007.
6. Marriages in each age group per 1,000 not-married census usually resident population count in that age group.
