The 2011 Census gets into full swing from tomorrow with the delivery of about eight million census forms and internet access codes.

NZers are only half as busy having babies as they were 40 years ago, but with today's larger population a similar number of babies - nearly 65,000 - were born last year.

Holding his only surviving daughter after a horror car crash, Donald Coulter says: "I thank my lucky stars I still have one. I still wish I had two."

Growth from India, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia supporting traditional sources.

Australia's big cities are eating the nation's future as they spread out across shrinking farmland, increase pollution, threaten water supplies and hit the quality of life.

This lucky generation of retirees...

New Zealand attracted more new migrants in November as long-term arrivals were steady, though Australia's attraction for kiwis persists.

The quest may no longer be for the elixir of immortality but with an ageing population there is increased awareness of what it takes to live long and well, writes Dionne Christian.

Two studies of human development, one launched in the 1970s and the other from earlier this year, reveal how different society is today.

New Zealand will look like a much different place in the future, if the early results of a longitudinal study are anything to go by.

The greater the gap between rich and poor, the more likely people will grow up a drug user, a criminal, less educated, obese, pregnant while a teenager, even less trusting of others.

All NZ regions had more births than deaths in the past year, with Auckland contributing 45 per cent of NZ's natural increase.

Forget Paul Henry’s narrow vision of a New Zealander. People from nearly every country in the world have made Aotearoa their home. Five new New Zealanders tell Shelley Bridgeman how they came here and why they became Kiwis.