What is ethnicity?
Ethnicity is the socio-cultural group or groups that people identify with or feel they belong to. An ethnic group is a group whose members have some or all of the following characteristics:
- share a sense of common origins
- claim a common and distinctive history and destiny
- possess one or more dimensions of collective cultural individuality
- feel a sense of unique collective solidarity.
Ethnicity is self-perceived and people can belong to more than one ethnic group and may change their ethnicities over time or in different social contexts. Ethnicity is not the same as ancestry or race. People frequently identify with ethnicities even though they may or may not be descended from ancestors or related people with those ethnicities.
How is ethnicity information used?
Information on ethnicity enables the needs of communities within the population to be measured. People of different ethnicities tend to have different characteristics and needs. Components of growth such as births, deaths, and migration histories tend to differ among ethnic groups.
For example, people of European ethnicity have an older age structure than people of Asian ethnicity and have different social and cultural needs. Information on ethnicity is one framework for identifying these needs.
Resources
Issues with ethnicity data
Ethnic data and issues, difficulties and incompatibilities between collections. Created for Population and Sustainable Development website, 2004.
How to ascribe ethnicity to families
Discussion of issues, highlighting misconceptions. Created for Population and Sustainable Development website, 2004.
Review of the measurement of ethnicity
Examines the concepts and measurements of ethnicity. Published by Statistics New Zealand, 2001.
Understanding and working with ethnicity (PDF, 331kb)
Describes the concepts and measurements of ethnicity and includes discussion of aspects of ethnicity data which users need to consider. Published by Statistics New Zealand, 2005.
When individual responses exceed input storage (PDF, 200kb)
A technical paper describing how to process data when the number of responses provided are greater than the maximum number of responses able to be handled. Published by Statistics New Zealand, 2005.
Ethnic Perspectives in Policy
A resource guide for policy makers. Published by the Office of Ethnic Affairs, 2002.
Population groups
Links to the Population groups section of this website.
Ethnicity and infant deaths
Information on matching of birth and death records for infant deaths and the consequences for derived demographic measures. Created for Population and Sustainable Development website, 2005.
Impact of prioritisation on the interpretation of ethnicity data (PDF, 131kb)
A short paper which shows the effect that prioritisation of ethnicity data has on data, using census data as an example. Published by Statistics New Zealand, 2006.
References
Banks M (1996). Ethnicity: Anthropological Constructions, Routledge, London.
Callister P, Didham R and Potter D (2005). Ethnic Intermarriage in New Zealand, Statistics New Zealand
Didham R (2004). Fertility of New Zealand Women by Ethnicity, Statistics New Zealand, Wellington.
Didham R (2005). Understanding and Working with Ethnicity Data, Statistics New Zealand, Wellington
Howard S and Didham R (2005). Ethnic Intermarriage and Ethnic Transference amongst the Maori Population, Statistics New Zealand, Wellington
Hutchinson J and Smith A (1996). Ethnicity, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Ip Manying (1996). Dragons of the Long White Cloud, Tandem Press, Auckland.
Ip Manying (2003). Unfolding History, Evolving Identity, Auckland University Press, Auckland.
Lang K (2002). Measuring Ethnicity in the New Zealand Population Census, Statistics New Zealand, Wellington.
Ministry of Health (2001). Monitoring Ethnic Inequalities in Health, Public Health Intelligence Occasional Bulletin No. 4, Ministry of Health, Wellington.
Petersen W (1997). Ethnicity Counts,Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick.
Pryor E T, Goldmann G J, Sheridan M J and White P M (1992). Measuring ethnicity: is 'Canadian' an evolving indigenous category? In Ethnic and Racial Studies, 15:2, 214-235.
Smith A (1981). The Ethnic Revival, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Smith A (1986). The Ethnic Origins of Nations, Blackwell, Oxford.
Spoonley P (ed) (2002). Tangata o te Moana Nui, Dunmore Press, Palmerston North.
Spoonley P (ed) (2004). Tangata, Tangata, Thomson/Dunmore Press, Palmerston North.
Statistics New Zealand (1988). Report of the Review Committee on Ethnic Statistics 1988, Department of Statistics, Wellington.
Experts
For further information email the Demography Division of Statistics New Zealand or write to:
Robert Didham
Demography Division
Statistics New Zealand
Dollan House
401 Madras Street
Private Bag 4741
Christchurch