Caring for family elders is an ingrained cultural expectation for many New Zealanders. Madeleine Chapman speaks to members of this invisible workforce who have taken on the ‘privilege and burden’, saving the government millions.
Helena* is on her lunch break. The 24-year-old doesn’t get out much these days. As the primary caregiver for her 76-year-old grandpa, Helena’s daily routine consists of monitoring his myriad medications, cooking meals according to his diabetic needs, cleaning up when he has his “quite regular” accidents, playing Tongan music in an attempt to stimulate his brain which is struggling with vascular dementia, and making sure he doesn’t try to sneak in sweet treats or wander outside to climb the tree in their backyard. “His behaviour now is very childlike,” says Helena, who can only sit down for an interview at a nearby cafe because her mum isn’t working today so is at home with Helena’s grandpa instead. “It’s hard seeing someone who raised me now become the person that I have to care for in that way.”
Helena has lived with her grandparents her whole life. A three-bedroom Kāinga Ora house in central Auckland has been their home for 30 years, with the couple helping to raise Helena and her sister while their mum worked.
In 2021, Helena’s grandma fell ill after a series of strokes, and then was diagnosed with dementia. Her care was shared between Helena, her sister and her mum. At the time, Helena was 19 and studying, but soon left university to work full time. She and her sister would care for her grandma during the day, then when their mum got home from work, they’d swap out and Helena would work a night shift at McDonald’s.
Helena’s grandma died in 2023, and soon after, her grieving and “really depressed” grandpa’s health deteriorated. It wasn’t long before he too needed full-time care in the home he shares with Helena, her mum, sister, sister’s partner and two young cousins. With mum, sister and partner all working, Helena became the default caregiver while on the jobseeker benefit. When her grandpa was officially diagnosed with dementia earlier this year, Helena’s case manager advised her to apply for the supported living payment – a higher benefit for those caring for someone with a significant illness or disability. She’s still waiting for her application to be approved.
Being a full-time caregiver at home as a 24-year-old is “a lot”, says Helena, “both mentally and emotionally. I see a lot of people my age having freedom, and then it’s a little bit of guilt when I do feel that way.” Despite the toll, Helena says she took on the role “willingly”, largely for cultural reasons. Helena’s grandpa is Tongan, and her grandma was Samoan. “Being raised Samoan, I was raised with service at the heart of our culture, especially our family.
“I just see it as a privilege and a burden at the same time.”
The privilege and burden of caring for New Zealand’s oldest residents has raised alarms in recent years as experts warn that the country’s already strained aged care infrastructure will soon crumble under the weight of our rapidly ageing population. The number of New Zealanders living in either retirement villages or rest homes continues to increase – the 2023 census recorded 39,864 New Zealanders living independently in retirement villages, and 33,417 people living in “residential care”.
Residential care, or aged care, encompasses facilities providing rest-home level care, hospital-level care, dementia and psychogeriatric care, typically for people aged over 80. Retirement villages, meanwhile, offer “independent community living” as a lifestyle choice for retirees. The New Zealand Retirement Village Database in 2022 showed 65% of retirement villages in New Zealand contained an aged care facility for residents.
Retirement villages skew overwhelmingly Pākehā. In the 2023 census, about 83% of New Zealanders aged 65 and over identified as European. But for retirement village residents, that number jumped to a massive 96.9%, with just 1.8% Asian and 0.4% Pacific.
Residential care numbers evened out a bit, with 88.4% European, 4.2% Asian and 2.5% Pacific. In Auckland, Pacific elders are both the most likely to have a disability (and at younger ages) and the least likely to receive aged care within a facility.
As New Zealanders get older and live longer, there’s an urgent call to reform aged care. Recent reports revealed instances of elderly patients essentially living at the hospital – or worse, discharged home without any support – due to a shortage of beds at aged care facilities. A 2024 Health NZ review of the aged care sector found that “high-priority Māori, Pacific and Asian individuals are much less likely than other ethnicities to be promptly admitted to an [aged residential care] facility”.
Patients receive a MAPLe (Method for Assigning Priority Levels) score. If their score is four or five, aged residential care should be considered and 24-hour care support likely needed. In 2021/22, Europeans were far, far more likely to enter a residential care facility within 12 months of receiving a four or five MAPLe score than any other ethnicity.
Helena’s grandpa, with his dementia diagnosis and comorbidities, would likely be recommended residential care, if not now then very soon. He would qualify for near full government subsidies given the family’s financial situation, which would mean his care fees being paid by his NZ Super and topped up by the government, as much as $1,200 a week (the average government spend on a subsidised rest home resident in 2023 was $65,000 per year, compared to $7,400 for at-home care services).
Health NZ’s 2024 report, prepared by Sapere, noted that “given Māori, Pacific and Asian populations do not utilise [aged residential care] at the same rate as NZ Europeans, a case could be made that a more equitable funding arrangement would involve a significant increase in [home care] expenditure”.
By caring for her grandpa full time at home, Helena is both freeing up a bed in a facility for someone else, and saving the government money. The supported living payment, if her application is approved, would pay $424.60 a week.
Rose* was about 40 when she became the sole caregiver for her widowed Samoan mum in Wellington. Rose’s dad died years earlier, but her sister’s family also lived at home so the care responsibility was shared. When they moved out 17 years ago, Rose, now 57, became the primary carer. “It was never a discussion with the family,” she remembers. “It’s just something that happened because I happened to be staying with her, and I think if she was staying with somebody else, then it might have just fallen on that person.”
Until recently, Rose’s mum was largely independent. She was a prolific cook, had lots of visitors and, although she couldn’t drive, liked to use her Gold Card to catch the bus and train around Wellington. Rose worked five minutes from home, “and Mum knew it too”, so could always pop home for small errands like firing up YouTube on the computer or grabbing something from the dairy.
Now, however, Rose’s mum is 90 and rapidly slowing down. The medical appointments have become more frequent and she can’t leave the house on her own. After being made redundant at her long-held job last year, Rose was able to find new work, but it’s 45 minutes away. “It does become a worry sometimes when I know that she isn’t feeling that great,” Rose says. “So sometimes I call just to make sure that she’s going to answer the phone.”
The income is good, but Rose will soon be leaving the job as, among other reasons, “the distance that I’m away from home is a bit of a concern… and the hours I’m putting in are just a bit too long.”
For both Helena and Rose, having their loved one cared for out of home is not an option for cultural and social reasons. Helena’s grandpa always spoke Tongan, Samoan and English (in that order), and despite speaking English to his granddaughters for decades, he now speaks only in Samoan. Helena suspects as his dementia progresses, he’ll eventually speak exclusively Tongan, his first language. “So that’s why I’m now trying to learn Tongan.”
Moving him into a new environment, where only English is spoken and strangers are caring for him, would be “unnecessary stress”, she thinks. “For some people it does work, but I think for Pacific Islanders especially, they thrive off being surrounded by others in their culture.”
Rose’s mum can speak some English but communicates mostly in Samoan, and has lived in her own, same home for decades. “She just wouldn’t be happy [in a village or rest home],” says Rose. “I reckon she’d just shut down if we put her in there. So after everything that she’s done, the least we can do is look after her.”
Caring for family elders is an ingrained cultural expectation for many New Zealanders, and begins well before medical care is required. While increased government funding of $79m for 2026/27 was welcomed by aged care facilities, whānau who want their elders to age well in place have been working on their own solutions.
In June, Rotorua iwi Ngāti Whakaue unveiled a papakāinga model of aged care, in partnership with kaupapa Māori health workforce development organisation Te Rau Ora, which focused on supporting the “unregulated workforce” that was “whānau that support whānau”. The model included an aim to develop a bespoke training programme for whānau carers that adhered to NZQA frameworks.
For Chinese, whānau care is a long process (Asians have the highest life expectancy in New Zealand) and many families have built – literally – their own care facilities.
Janet* lives in her own home with her husband and three young children. And in the backyard, in a specially built small home, lives her 73-year-old mum.
When Janet’s dad died 10 years ago, her mum lived independently for a couple of years, continuing to work. But after Janet had kids, she realised her mum was working full time, going straight from work to Janet’s place to help with the kids, then going home to sleep. “It was stupid for her to go back to her house just to sleep,” Janet remembers. So when the family moved to a bigger house, they moved Porpor in. “She was being so helpful towards us, and it was also a cost-saving thing for her because she was paying for power and internet and all of that kind of stuff at her house.”
After living together for a while and finding the situation worked for everyone, Janet and her husband had a small home built for Porpor behind their house. It was designed and built with future needs in mind – including a bathroom big enough for a carer in case her mum ever needed one. “The plan would be that she would stay there forever, really,” says Janet, who lived with her parents for years after her dad had a stroke.
At the moment, Janet thinks she and her young family benefit the most from the arrangement. “She picks up the kids from school for us and drops them off, she gets them to activities. I organise most of it, but you just tell her what to do, she does it all,” Janet says. In return, Janet is careful not to take it for granted.
“I know that on a Saturday she goes to the bowling club in the afternoon, so if I need someone to look after the kids on a Saturday, I would never ask her because I know that’s her time. She’d drop anything if I asked, so I just don’t ask.”
All three women (caregiving overwhelmingly lands in the hands of daughters) say that if their loved one’s care needs became too much, they would look into rest home care. But all also agree that the threshold for taking them out of their own home is extremely high. While Janet’s mum currently helps a lot, she’s due to have a knee replacement soon, and Janet suspects the caregiving dynamic will shift heavily following surgery.
For all three, the care they received from their elders growing up has fostered an urge to return the favour. “My parents worked fucking hard for us to have this life,” says Janet.” I am so much better off [financially] than my parents, but I am successful now because my parents worked so hard. We owned restaurants growing up, and they were working 24/7. I don’t work 24/7. My life’s fricking easy compared to theirs.”
Rose has never married or had children herself, and most of her adult life has been spent in service to her mum. Nearing 60, she hopes that once she is no longer caring for her mum, she can travel and maybe live overseas. (“If I wasn’t staying with her, I wouldn’t be living here in Wellington.”)
Helena, meanwhile, has to remind herself that her life is still evolving. “Becoming a caregiver so young for my grandma, and then on top of that with my grandpa, it’s like I don’t know for sure what I want to do,” she says. “While I’m caring for him, I’m trying to figure out likes and dislikes and things I’m interested in, and I’m taking on hobbies to fill my time, but also to make it make this time not feel like I’m putting my life on pause.”
She doesn’t know how long she’ll be caring for her grandpa, and thinks a bit more financial assistance for aged carers at home is warranted. She also wants to see more wraparound support, having recently joined an online group for those caring for their relatives, started by a local TikToker. “I just think [we need] more of those support groups, ensuring that caregivers not only are getting paid the money that they should be paid, because technically it is a job, but also having that support from the government that acknowledges that what they’re doing is a service unto their family but also to society.”
And on that note, Helena needs to go. Her mum has an errand to run and her grandpa needs his meds.
