Ministry of Justice, New Zealand

1.1 Background

This survey was conducted by the Ministry of Justice to ascertain public attitudes towards the physical discipline of children. This information is to contribute to ongoing policy work on section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961. Section 59 provides a defence to parents charged with assault of their children. Under section 59, every parent of a child (and every person in the place of the parent of a child) is justified in using force by way of correction towards the child, if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances.

The issue of section 59 primarily arose in the context of a proposed Government-wide work programme to improve New Zealand's compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 (UNCROC). The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has previously recommended that New Zealand review its corporal punishment legislation with the view to banning all forms of corporal punishment against children.

Officials have investigated how other comparable countries, particularly in the European Union, have addressed the issue of compliance with UNCROC and the existence of law similar to section 59. They found that while many European countries are banning physical punishment, a number of Commonwealth countries, such as Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, are either doing nothing or considering placing restrictions in law on when the use of physical punishment was appropriate.

Officials are currently analysing the implications for New Zealand should Parliament (for example, through a Member's Bill) decide to repeal or amend section 59 and what education measures could be undertaken. The findings of this survey will inform officials' advice to government.

1.2 Methodology

The survey aimed to ascertain public attitudes to the physical discipline of children. This study involved a stand alone, nation-wide, telephone survey of 1,000 adults (18 years and over) that was undertaken by the National Research Bureau Ltd during June 2001. The sample was to include proposed minimum samples of 100 Maori and 100 Pacific peoples.

Questions

The survey consisted of closed questions that asked respondents about three different aspects of physical discipline of children. The first area enquired whether respondents agreed or disagreed with various viewpoints on the type of physical punishment a person parenting a child should be allowed, by law, to carry out for the purposes of punishing a naughty child. The different types of punishment included:

• smacking with an open hand;
• using implements such as a wooden spoon or belt;
• using implements that were heavier, such as a piece of wood;
• and smacking a child in the head and neck area.

The second area of questioning asked people whether they viewed different levels of physical punishment as acceptable or unacceptable. The levels included:

• a smack that leaves no mark on the child's skin;
• punishment that leaves a red mark that lasts a few days;
• punishment that leaves a bruise that lasts a few days;
• punishment that leaves marks and bruises that last for more than a few days but doesn't cause a permanent injury; and
• punishment that causes an injury that needs medical attention.

The third area of questioning asked which age groups of children respondents thought people should not be allowed to punish physically. The age groups were:

• under 2 years;
• 2 -5 years;
• 6 -10 years;
• 11 -14 years; and
• 15 -17 years.

Response rate and margin of error

The response rate to the survey was 59%. This is the percentage of people who agreed to participate in the survey out of the total number of people telephoned (approximately 1,700), in order to reach the total survey sample of 1000 respondents.

The survey results were further analysed by demographic variables (see Table 1 below) and all those results that are reported are significant at the 95% confidence level unless otherwise stated as being significant at the 99% confidence level, which is represented by the p value (p<0.01) in a footnote. The 95% confidence level means that we can say with 95% certainty that these results have not occurred by chance. Similarly, for the 99% confidence level we can say there is a 99% certainty that these results have not occurred by chance.

The reported results are based on weighted sample sizes that take into account gender, age and ethnicity to align the sample to the 1996 New Zealand Census population [12]. This makes it possible to generalise the findings to the New Zealand population, subject to measurement error, also referred to as margins of error. The margins of error at the 95% and 99% confidence levels associated with a result of 50% of the total survey sample (1000 respondents) agreeing with a particular statement are approximately 3.1% and 4.1% respectively (see Appendix D). For example, if 50% of a sample of 1000 agreed with a particular statement, we can say with 95% confidence that between 46.9% and 53.1% of the whole population would agree to the statement.

For all the questions the respondents were given the option to say they don't know/ no idea or that they would prefer not to answer. As the proportion who responded in this way was very low (below 2%) for every question, these responses were not included in the analysis.

Limitations

A short survey of this nature must necessarily be limited in scope. The questions cannot explore every aspect of physical discipline of children. For example, the questions only focused on attitudes, rather than the use of physical punishment.[13] The attitudes of children themselves would add valuable insight into these issues. However the methodology was considered inappropriate to ask children their views. This would require a different type of study, with face-to-face interviews conducted by specially trained interviewers.[14]

The way a question is worded also has an impact on the response. A comparative analysis of some of the questions highlights this point. However, all the questions (apart from the demographic information) in the survey implicitly asked whether it is acceptable to physically discipline children. A respondent who did not agree with the physical discipline of children would have found all the viewpoints unacceptable.

A limitation of self-report surveys is that they are based on what respondents decide to report. There is the possibility that respondents may say what they think is the correct response rather than what they actually think or do.

Telephone surveys are thought to under-represent groups who have lower rates of telephone ownership and to achieve a lower response from Maori and Pacific peoples who tend to prefer face-to-face interviewing. However, approximately 96% of households have a telephone.

The survey findings are divided into three sections relating to each of the three areas of questioning. They are: type of physical punishment; severity of physical punishment; and ages of children.[15]

Statistical testing

Statistical analyses were performed on the unweighted data using The Survey System (TSS) software. Chi-square tests were used to assess statistical differences between responses to the questions about the physical discipline of children according to the following demographic variables and groupings:

Table 1.1 Demographic variables and respective groupings

The NZSEI occupational status scores attributed to each of the broad occupational categories were calculated by Statistics New Zealand to reflect the education and income of those who practise occupations that fall within these categories. The index assumes that a person's occupation provides a reasonable basis on which to assign them a position on the socio- economic hierarchy. The occupations with higher scores reflect more education and income, which can be taken as a measure of socio-economic status (see Appendix C for further discussion).

In regards to parental status, 53% of the sample were currently parenting and 29% had previously parented, equating to a total of 82% of respondents who had parenting experience. Eighteen percent of the sample had never parented.

Footnotes

12 Refer to Appendix A for the comparative weighting of the sample sizes for gender, age and ethnicity to the 1996 New Zealand Census proportions.

13 The Department of Child, Youth and Family has recently (May 2000) conducted a survey on the impact of their Alternatives to Smacking Campaign that included questions on practice.

14 Some consultation with children on this issue has taken place in the context of The Agenda for Children and Youth Development Strategy being led by the Ministries of Social Development and Youth Affairs.

15 A note on the presentation of percentage results. The results over 2% have been rounded to the nearest whole number. However, as a considerable number of results are under 2%, these results are presented at the one decimal point place for the purposes of clarity.

16 The Armed Forces was excluded from the analysis because the sample size of the group, which was four respondents, was considered too small to be representative.