Families

Families provide emotional, physical and financial care and support to their members and are often the basis on which government assistance is determined and administered. Australians have 1 experienced three main living arrangements over a lifecycle: living with parents, living with a partner (for some of this period with children) and living alone in old age if that partner died. Now and into the future, living arrangements 2 a lifecycle may also include living alone or in a group household before perhaps forming a long-term partnership, or living as a 3 parent or alone after divorce or separation. These changes in living arrangements and family 4 are the outcome of various demographic and social trends, such as declining fertility, increased rates of divorce and longer life 5.