It's not all Pa Breeder, Ma Breeder, 2.4 Brood any more.
Two in three (67 per cent) of 6000 participants in the Australian Institute of Family Studies research, What is Family? by Dr Luke Gahan and Mikayla Budinski, said people’s closeness as shown through their support was important in defining who family members are, and two in five (41 per cent) said family is people they choose, including blood relatives and close friends.
LGBTQ+ people were almost twice as likely to rate blood or genetics as unimportant in defining a family, compared with others (32 per cent versus 17 per cent).
Older Australians, those born before 1946, still consider genetic ties to be important markers of family, but this declines among younger generations. Just 24 per cent of those among Gen Z said they consider blood ties to be important.
All demographics rated love as more important than any other characteristic in deciding who is family. More than half (52 per cent) of participants consider their pets to be family members.