Father's Day 2012

To celebrate Father’s Day on Sunday 2 September 2012, Statistics New Zealand is releasing some facts about fathers, based on 2011 data.

• On Father's Day in 2011, about 150 men received a new baby as their present.
• The average age of fathers of new babies was 32 years in 2011, but 14 in 100 babies had a father aged 40 or over and 1 in 100 babies had a father aged 50 or over.
• Fathers of today’s newborn babies are, on average, four years older than their own fathers were when they were born.
• Just over 30 percent of babies born in New Zealand last year were to fathers who were not born in New Zealand. One-quarter of the overseas-born fathers were born in Samoa, Tonga, or Fiji. Close to 15 percent were born in the United Kingdom and 10 percent were born in China.
• On average, fathers with a child under 14 years spend around 5 hours a day caring for children on weekdays, and 8.5 hours a day on weekends.

Data Sources: Birth registrations, Time Use Survey