A "main" ethnic group? Ethnic self-prioritisation among New Zealand youth.

• Author: Kukutai, Tahu
• Position: Report

Abstract

Since 1991 a growing share of the New Zealand population has reported more than one ethnic group in the census, with rates especially high among children. A key challenge arising from the collection of ethnicity data is deciding where to count people who record more than one group. In this paper we explore how a self-prioritised measure of main ethnicity may facilitate and improve the usage of multiple-ethnic data. We do so using 2006 data from wave one of the Youth Connectedness survey of early adolescents. We find that three-quarters of youth who recorded more than one ethnic group were able to choose a main group when asked to do so. Though we have reservations about using a main ethnicity measure to output ethnic data, we see promise for research that seeks to better understand identification processes and their relations with ethnic identity and inequality.

INTRODUCTION

The view that race and ethnicity are socially and politically constructed markers of difference rather than objective traits of human beings is unremarkable in the social sciences (Omi and Winant 1994). In other forums, however, the belief in the idea of distinct races endures--testament to its powerful rendering through legal, bureaucratic and "scientific" designations, racial ideologies, and everyday interactions (Callister and Didham 2009). Although the globalisation of migration flows and the removal of prescriptive identity rules and classifications have begun to challenge long-held notions that individuals belong to a single race or ethnic group, change has been slow to filter through to official statistics.

Among census-taking nations, New Zealand is one of a small number that explicitly allows for identification with multiple ethnic groups (Kukutai and Thompson 2007, Morning 2008). Since the introduction of the ethnic group question in the 1991 census, a growing share of the New Zealand population has reported belonging to more than one group. As Table 1 shows, in 1991 just 5% of New Zealanders identified with more than one ethnic group; by 2006 this had doubled, though the increase has not been monotonic. In all years multi-ethnic identification has been especially pronounced among younger people and among Maori and Pacific peoples. The latter groups are of interest to policy makers, in part because of their comparative socio-economic disadvantage.

In New Zealand, as in other Anglo settler states (United States, Canada, Australia), ethnicity and related terms such as "race" and "indigeneity" are important variables in social research and policy. Among those who work with ethnicity data in New Zealand there is a broad consensus that allowing people to choose more than one group is desirable to best reflect the nation's ethnic milieu (Didham 2005). However, giving effect to complex ethnic identification presents a number of challenges in terms of measurement, analysis and dissemination. How should people who choose to identify with multiple groups be statistically represented? What weight should be given to statistical requirements versus individual identification decisions? What does identification with more than one group even mean? As Bhopal (2004) notes, there is no easy answer to such questions:

The increasing acceptance of sexual unions that cross ethnic and racial boundaries is adding both richness and complexity to most societies. The way to categorise people born of such unions is unclear and the current approaches are inadequate, partly because the number of potential categories is huge. (Bhopal 2004:444)

In this paper we explore how a self-prioritised ethnicity measure may help advance the understanding of complex ethnicity data. Allowing people to choose a main ethnic group was one of several approaches for managing multiple-ethnic data identified in the 2004 Report of the Review of the Measurement of Ethnicity (Statistics New Zealand 2004). However, with the exception of Kukutai (2004, 2008), little research has been conducted on ethnic self-prioritisation. We attempt to address this dearth by exploring whether a main ethnicity prompt delivers useful information that cannot be captured by the officially sanctioned methods.

We begin with a discussion about multiple-ethnic identification in surveys and some ways of reporting and analysing such data. We then provide an empirical analysis of self-prioritisation using data from the first wave of Victoria University's longitudinal Youth Connectedness survey of early adolescents. Only summary data are presented as a full technical paper by Kukutai (2008) is available on the Statistics New Zealand website. Given that young people will significantly influence the nation's ethnic terrain in coming years, it is valuable to have insights into their identification decisions. Three questions inform the following analysis:

* Can young people who identify with multiple ethnic groups choose a main ethnic group when asked to do so?

* If so, what group is prioritised?

* How does a young person's readiness to choose between his or her ethnicities vary across specific ethnic group combinations?

We conclude with some thoughts about the role that main ethnicity could play in the future in research and policy making.

MULTIPLE-ETHNIC IDENTIFICATION

Patterns of ethnic identification, including how people are designated in the census, are important for various reasons. In terms of policy and planning, ethnicity data are routinely used to identify population parameters and characteristics, often in ways that influence the distribution of valued resources. Patterns of ethnic identification are also of sociological import as they "reflect and affect the surrounding social world" (Liebler 2004:702). In New Zealand (Callister 2003, Keddeli 2007, Kukutai 2007) and elsewhere (Brunsma 2005, Roth 2005, Tafoya et al. 2004, Xie and Goyette 1997) there is ample evidence that the ethnic labels people choose or are designated are not simply reflections of their parental ethnicities, but are mediated by a range of factors. These may be categorised as:

* structural--for example, the ethnic composition of the neighbourhood, ethnic group status differences, and ethnic politics

* personal- for example, life-cycle stage and the ties linking individuals and their families

* contextual--for example, how, where and why ethnic identification was elicited (Burton et al. 2008, see also Carter et al. 2009).

The matter of defining who is multi-ethnic is not straightforward. Goldstein and Morning's (2000) research on the multiple-race population in the United States suggests at least three ways of conceptualising a multiple-ethnic population in New Zealand: by ancestry, by ethnic identification in the census, and by parental ethnicities. The disconnect between boundaries based on ancestry, parental ethnicities and self-identification varies, depending on the groups involved, the context and the time period. To illustrate this complexity, 643,977 people reported Maori ancestry in the 2006 census, but just over 80% of them (522,577) identified as Maori by ethnicity. By comparison, an estimated 7,876,568 people reported American Indian ancestry in the 2000 US census, but only 4,315,865 people (representing 55% of the American Indian descent population) racially identified as American Indian (Brittingham and de la Cruz 2004). (2)

The statistical construction of a multiple-ethnic population is only possible if people are permitted to identify as such (inputs), and their identification decisions are tabulated in a way that their number can be determined (outputs). Morning (2008) has noted three possible ways in which census forms allow for multi-ethnic identification: permitting the respondent to check off more than one category; offering a generic mixed-response option that, in effect, creates a single ethnic category (e.g. "Mestizo"); and, specifying exact combinations of interest.

In New Zealand, all three approaches have been used to document complex ethnic and racial identities. From 1874 through to 1921 inter-racial mixing was captured by the use of the "half-caste" category. (3) The vast majority of half-castes were half-caste Maori-Europeans, who were further distinguished on the basis of those who lived as Maori (i.e. in a kin-group village setting) and those who lived as Europeans. According to the 1921 census report the total number of half-caste Maori-Europeans was only about one-sixth of the number of Maori (49,635). Though the tables show half-caste Europeans (4,236) outnumbered half-caste Maori (3,116), the latter category was almost certainly underestimated. This is because many Maori with a European parent or grandparent chose not to acknowledge their mixed heritage, or were simply identified as Maori (Buck 1924).

The 1926 census introduced a new complexity by requiring respondents to quantify their heritage more precisely in terms of fractions. (4) The examples accompanying the question varied over time, but among the specific combinations named were "European-Indian quarter-caste" (1926); "1/2 Maori--1/2 Indian" (1945); and "7/8 European + 1/8 Maori" (1981). From the mid-1980s two significant changes occurred that affected the reportage of complex identities. First, the collection of fractional data was abandoned in the 1986 census and tick-boxes for ethnic origin groups were introduced with the instruction to "tick the box or boxesthat apply to you". Second, all references to origins were removed from the census questionnaire in 1991 and replaced by the term "ethnic group". The concept of ethnic group is intended to capture a person's current cultural affiliation rather than the ethnic origins of their ancestors.

"COUNTING" COMPLEX ETHNICITY

The acknowledgement of complex ethnicity in the New Zealand census has, in some ways, been less problematic than deciding how such people ought to be statistically represented. For many decades post-enumeration rules were used to allocate people...