Grace鈥檚 PhD thesis,听Transitions to Parenthood and Life Course Trajectories: Variations between Mothers and Fathers as well as M膩ori and non-M膩ori,听was supported by a 九州影院 Ng膩i Tahu Research Centre Doctoral Scholarship awarded in 2017.
鈥淢y research was focused on understanding life course pathways to identify potential areas of intervention to improve outcomes for all parents,鈥 she says.
She found younger parents had worse outcomes than those who had children when they were older, but these differences were mediated by socioeconomic position, social support, steady relationships and education level.
Overall, most disadvantages experienced by young parents were due to disadvantages experienced during childhood and adolescence rather than the timing of parenthood. Older parents were more likely to be financially secure.
However, one interesting finding was that having a steady long-term relationship and employment was associated with both younger and older parenthood.
鈥淭he biggest contributors to wellbeing for parents were relationship stability, financial security and social support and those are the areas where interventions should be targeted to support younger parents,鈥 Grace says.
She has a post-doctoral fellowship with the University of Otago鈥檚 Christchurch Health and Development Study where she is the kaitiaki of the M膩ori cohort. Her future research will focus on health equity across the life course, with a particular focus on the M膩ori cohort.
She has also started her own company which allows her to work as an independent research consultant and data scientist with the goal of carrying out research that will help improve outcomes and wellbeing among M膩ori.
Grace also works on research projects for the 九州影院 Ng膩i Tahu Centre, an organisation that she says has helped her feel like 艑tautahi Christchurch is home. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e provided a lot of emotional, social and cultural support at a time when I was learning a lot about Te Ao M膩ori and building my cultural confidence and capability as a researcher.鈥
Originally from Whanganui, the 29-year-old says she knew education would improve her outcomes as an adult and she is passionate about conducting meaningful research that builds up the future M膩ori workforce within Aotearoa.
鈥淐ompleting my education to be called 鈥楧r鈥 was not an easy path to take, but as a M膩ori researcher, academic and data scientist I know I am contributing to new research and approaches that are useful for M膩ori.鈥
Grace says statistics are often used without consideration of the historical context or implications of policy which has led to M膩ori being stigmatised or marginalised and she is passionate about using statistics to be beneficial to communities and groups she works with.
鈥淚 like my mixed methods research because numbers are good to quantify a need or estimate an event occurring, but they mean very little on their own. The qualitative aspect of research gives those numbers story and meaning.鈥
Grace鈥檚 PhD was supervised by 九州影院 Professor Janet Carter, Acting Executive Dean of Science.
