Today's Kiwi male short on cash and babies

Rodney O'Connor and his wife plan to have a child as soon as possible. Photo / Janna Dixon

Forget the Barry Crumps of the 1970s, the brash pinstriped yuppies of the 1980s, or the metrosexuals of the millennium.

New official statistics draw up an identikit image of the typical laidback Kiwi bloke - and he's bad news. Bad news, at least, for the continuation of New Zealanders as a people.

The "average" Kiwi male is getting older, marrying later or not at all and isn't thinking about babies until the early 30 mark. He's 35 years old, earns $681 a week, gets married at 29 and dies at 78.

Given his limited disposable income and his refusal to commit, he looks much like one of the blokes in the DB or Tui ads: relaxed, unkempt, happy-go-lucky, and out to have fun without spending too much.

The typical Kiwi woman is a little older than him at 37, earns $430 a week, marries at 28 and is likely to have two children.

The median figures were released in last month's Demographic Trends 2009 report.

They show a dramatic change in what makes a typical Kiwi compared with about 10 years ago.

For example, at June 30 last year, half the population was over the age of 36.5, compared with only 34 a decade ago.

The median age of men has also risen by 2.3 years since 1999 and 2.7 for women.

The age of the working population has also risen, from 37.5 to 39.2 years.

But perhaps the biggest changes for typical Kiwis are in the marriage and baby stakes. The Nanny State, Nursery New Zealand - call it what you will - is over because breeding-age Kiwis have a rapidly declining interest in settling down and making babies.

The marriage rate has fallen by 19 per cent since 1971.

Instead, New Zealanders are opting for de facto relationships, delaying marriage, or just staying single.

Professor Natalie Jackson, of the University of Waikato's Population Studies Centre, said people were marrying later because of social changes.

"In the past, people had to partner to have sex or have a child. But once people got control of their fertility in the 60s with the contraceptive pill, partners were no longer essential," she said.

People were also marrying later because they were focusing more on establishing careers that would later enable them to provide for a family financially.

And lifestyle opportunities such as travel also pushed settling down further back on people's list of priorities.

Jackson said women were having children later for the same reasons, "and because more women go on to finish high school, go to uni and take career paths rather than just any job as in the past".

Statistics show the typical Kiwi woman will have her first child at 30.

"This is a significant departure from the early 70s when the 20-24 age group was the most common for childbearing," the report said.

In 1961 women were having an average of four children each. But the 2010 Kiwi woman will have two children in total, and is likely to have them before she is 34.

Jackson said that, essentially, Kiwis were less inclined to settle, buy a house and have children until they were older as they were "risk averse".

Statistics NZ figures also revealed the average Kiwi household raked in a weekly income of $1459 and the average weekly mortgage payment was $328.

Travel and fun give way to a family

Meet Mr Average: Rodney O'Connor is the typical Kiwi bloke. At 35, he has travelled, married, and earns only slightly more than the average weekly income.

That said, no man is an algorithm, and the Auckland application engineer has bucked at least one trend. He got married at 24 - five years earlier than the median age for men to marry.

"I just fell in love with the right person. There was no set time limit. When it's right it's right," he said.

He thought people were putting marriage and families off longer these days because there were more opportunities than a decade ago. O'Connor and his wife plan to start a family as soon as possible.

"We've waited to make that commitment until this point because we had a busy, active lifestyle. There is a lot more emphasis on people going and seeing the world. There is a bit more life to live and there is no rush to settle.

"And people are a bit more worried about finances these days and how they are going to cope with having kids."

O'Connor said typical Kiwis were different now from their counterparts because they were less inclined to stay in one place.

"We tried to settle down a few years ago, bought a house and everything. But we got bored and left the country. The monotony of staying in one place - there's no rush. I think we like variety," he said.