The Research

The Growing Up in New Zealand research is done by face-to-face interview. 

A trained interviewer comes to the child's home and asks questions about the child and some Census-type questions to give us a general picture of the child's family. We schedule the interviews at a time that suits the parents – weekdays, evenings or weekends are all possible.

The father/ partner’s interview is separate from the mother's interview; this is so we have two distinct parents’ voices, rather than a one combined voice. 

After the first face-to-face interview, the next contact from us is a 5 minute phone call six weeks after the baby's due date, to see how the mother and baby are, and to ask a few simple questions like birth weight, names, gender, date of birth etc.

The next face-to-face interview is when the babies are nine months old, which is a year after the first interview.

There's another short phone call when the baby is around 16 months old to ask a few questions about thier first steps and first words.

The next face-to-face interview scheduled after that is when the babies are around 2 years old.