history – Page 68

Understanding New Zealand: Demographics of European New Zealanders

Possibly the single most striking characteristic of the demographic bloc of Kiwis of European descent is that they are considerably older than average. The correlation between being of European descent and median age was 0.72.

Predictably, then, there is a very strong positive correlation with being of European descent and being on the pension – this was 0.65.

This raises the interesting point that, for all the rhetoric about lazy Maoris sucking unemployment benefits out of the country, there are legions of wealthy white Kiwis getting paid much more than an unemployment benefit in the form of a pension, which is not means tested.

Aside from this, the trends show the general pattern of industriousness among Kiwis of European descent. The sorts of industry that demands a committed and sustained physical effort tends to be stacked with them. The correlation between being of European descent and working in construction was 0.38; with working in agriculture, forestry and fishing it was 0.37; and with mining it was 0.25.

Like the average Maori, the average European New Zealander is born in New Zealand. The correlation between being of European descent and being born in New Zealand is 0.33.

European New Zealanders are also markedly likely to delay reproduction. The correlation between being of European descent and being in a couple without children is a very strong 0.81. This reflects the degree to which Kiwis of European descent have a tendency to live for a number of years together as a couple before committing to having children.

Some might predict, based on that, that the correlation between being of European descent and being a solo parent would be significantly negative. It turns out to be a strongly negative -0.68.

Kiwis of European descent were much more likely than average to be former tobacco smokers. The correlation between the two was a very strong 0.74. This is strong enough to suggest that it is a common cultural experience among Kiwis of European descent to have struggled with tobacco addiction and to have successfully overcome it.

European New Zealanders were the only racial group that had a significant positive correlation with biking to work – this was 0.38. This correlation may not reflect so much the culture of European New Zealanders as the fact that Christchurch is an extremely bicycle-friendly city and is also very European, whereas the opposite is true of Auckland.

They also had a moderately strong positive correlation with working from home, which was 0.58. All of the other races had negative correlations with working from home, which probably reflects the fact that the vast majority of Kiwi farmers and people living in isolated areas are of European descent.

Perhaps fitting the stereotype that white people are never desperately poor, there is an extremely strong negative correlation between being of European descent and being in the income band of Loss or Nil Income, which was -0.84.

There were two separate income bands which had a significant positive correlation with being of European descent.

The first was the $15-25K income band. The correlation between being of European descent and having an income between $15-20K was 0.29, and with having an income between $20-25K it was 0.34.

Probably the reason for this is the large number of young Kiwis of European descent who become students, because a person on a student allowance or loan and maybe working part time will be in this income range.

The second was the $60-100K income band. This is about where people expect the average Kiwi of European descent to end up. The correlation between being of European descent and having an income between $60-70K was 0.32, and with having an income between $70-100K it was 0.29.

Being strongly represented in these high income bands reflects that the average Kiwi of European descent is a bit older and a bit better educated than the average and will therefore have significant career advantages in both seniority and expertise.

Given that, it is not surprising that there is a strong positive correlation between being a manager and being of European descent – this was 0.54. The other occupation that had the strongest positive correlation with being of European descent was technicians and trade workers, which was 0.33.

The strongest negative correlation between being of European descent and working as a particular occupation was with the Maori-dominated machinery operators and drivers, which was -0.31.

There was also a moderately strong correlation of 0.51 with being of European descent and living on the South Island.

Kiwis of European descent are very likely to either own their own homes or to live with their parents still. There was a negative correlation with being of European descent and every band of rent paid, apart from the $150-199 per week student niche, which was 0.01.

Perhaps interestingly, there were no significant correlations between being of European descent and having any of the higher degrees. The closest was with having a doctorate, which was 0.22.

This reflects how the bulk of the population in New Zealand is Kiwis of European descent and subsequently they comprise most of the middle between the high-achieving Asians and the low-achieving Maoris and Pacific Islanders.

This article is an excerpt from Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan, published by VJM Publishing in the winter of 2017.

Understanding New Zealand: Voting Patterns of the Non-Religious

Interestingly, the Electoral Profiles do not distinguish between atheist, agnostic and non-religious, lumping all such positions under the appellation of ‘non-religious’. This might not have a major impact here, and it is likely that future versions do make such a distinction.

The non-religious especially didn’t seem to think much of the Labour Party. The correlation between being non-religious and voting Labour in 2014 was -0.50. The major reason for this is the large numbers of Pacific Islanders that vote Labour, because the vast majority of them are religious.

The sort of young person who has grown up after New Zealand made forced religious instruction illegal tends to be a Green voter. The correlation between being non-religious and voting Green in 2014 was 0.56.

Taken with other statistics, that suggests that the bulk of Generation X – the first really post-religious generation in New Zealand – are Green voters.

These two statistics, taken together, suggest a clear fault line between the shared territories of the Labour and Green parties. The former is very religious whereas the latter abhors it. Grimly, the way that this is likely to be resolved is by a further marginalisation of the highly religious working-class Pacific Islanders.

The parties that get heavy support from Maoris did not have significant correlations with being non-religious, but they were positive. The correlation between being non-religious and voting New Zealand First in 2014 was 0.12, with voting Internet MANA it was 0.14, and with voting Maori Party it was 0.20.

This reflects how Maoris have generally grown out of religious belief but not to the same extent that young Kiwis of European descent have.

People with no religion don’t seem to think much of the far-right parties either. The correlation between having no religion and voting Conservative in 2014 was -0.04, and with voting ACT in 2014 was -0.23.

Probably the reason for this latter correlation is that the non-religious young middle-class people tend to vote Green, and these heavily outweigh those who vote ACT. Moreover, a very large proportion of ACT voters are from North East Asia and consequently are (at least nominally) Buddhists.

Perhaps demonstrative of a shared interest in free-thinking, there was a significant positive correlation between being non-religious and voting Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party in 2014 – this was 0.34.

After all, it’s plausible that if a person rejects the propaganda of one pack of aggressive liars in the form of the priesthood, they might do the some with the propaganda of another pack of aggressive liars in the form of the politicians who have prohibited cannabis.

There was also a significant positive correlation between having no religion and turnout rate in 2014 – this was 0.24. This was probably because of the large degree of disenfranchisment among highly religious Pacific Islander immigrants, as well as the large number of Maoris, in particular solo mothers who are doing it hard and have become religious primarily for the sake of social support.

This article is an excerpt from Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan, published by VJM Publishing in the winter of 2017.

r/K Selection Theory and Political Orientation

r/K selection theory is an ecological concept that applies to the attitudes that a breeding creature will have towards its offspring. Simply put, all sexually reproducing creatures fall along a spectrum that has zero parental input into the survival of the offspring at one end (the r end) and extremely high parental input at the other end (the K end).

The classic r-strategy is one that has a very high rate of breeding, and a correspondingly very low rate of parental investment, like that of a reptile or a mouse. The classic K-strategy, by contrast, is one that has a low rate of breeding and a correspondingly high rate of parental investment, like that of an elephant or a human being.

As above, so below: the thinking of people can be understood along this exact same parallel. Although biologists don’t look at it like this, it’s possible to view this r/K arrangement as representing the degree of solidarity that exists between human generations.

The r-strategy could be compared to the kind of male that gets a woman pregnant and then disappears from the scene before he is called upon to provide any resources for the offspring. It is even described as “opportunistic”, in much the same way that that kind of male behaviour is.

The K-strategy would then be compared to the kind of male that forms a monogamous pair bond for life, with no intention of finding future female partners to inseminate, and who makes a large investment in terms of time and/or energy in making sure that the offspring of the bond grow up to be fit to deal with the selective pressures of life.

Practically speaking, a male running the r-strategy would have to inseminate more females than a male running the K-strategy, because fewer of the former male’s offspring could be expected to survive to adulthood, on account of the lower degree of parental investment they received.

Moreover, a smaller proportion of those who did survive to adulthood would reproduce, because those who did survive would more frequently be socially or emotionally defective in comparison to those who had a more natural level of paternal investment.

The r/K selection strategy parallels closely the objective of the various political wings. What’s odd, though, is that both wings of the left-right spectrum see themselves as representatives of the K-strategy and their opponents as the representatives of the r-strategy.

Conservatives would consider that the optimal K-strategy would be a monogamous marriage, and preferably a Christian one, and this is the kind of family that appears to be held up in our culture as some kind of ideal. In such a marriage the father would stick around and provide a large amount of investment in a relatively small number of offspring.

They would consider that paying out money in welfare is a mistake because it incentivises r-strategy men to impregnate women and then disappear. In many cases the fear is that welfare incentivises women to get inseminated by dead-beat males and that the rest of us therefore have to carry the burden for children who would not otherwise have existed.

Liberals would consider that the K-strategy involved paying an amount of tax that was sufficient to cover all the requirements every citizen has to grow into a healthy, productive adult. This would mean a high level of investment in every child – schooling, healthcare, freedom from abuse and neglect etc.

They would consider the r-strategy to be what religious conservatives do when they have large numbers of children in adherence to a religious admonition to populate the Earth, and then raise them to be fearful, prejudiced and superstitious.

It appears somehow natural, when reading about the difference, to associate humans and mammals with the K-strategy and reptiles and insects with the r-strategy. Probably this is why both sides of the politico-retard spectrum consider themselves to represent the K-strategy.

Oddly, this gives us a potential way forward for the political system. If both left and right can agree that a K-strategy is morally superior to an r-strategy, then why not forget left and right entirely and run the system along the lines of a K-strategy?

Understanding New Zealand: Demographics of the Non-Religious

One statistic that many will find suprising is that there is a positive (if insignificant) correlation between having no religion and median age – this was 0.16. In other words, the average non-religious Kiwi is older than the average religious one.

There are some easy ways to misinterpret this trend so one has to be careful. One common way to misread it is that religion is growing in power again, by somehow having increased its appeal to the youth of today.

The reality is that the most strongly non-religious demographic is the group of Kiwis of European descent, and this group is also significantly older and larger than the other racial demographics.

The correlation between being of European descent and having no religion was 0.69, and because the correlation between being of European descent and median age was 0.72, we can already happily explain the correlation between no religion and median age.

With being Maori there was a positive but not significant correlation with having no religion – this was 0.13. Some might be surprised that this is not higher, as Maoris are not particularly religious compared to most other demographics.

At least part of the reason is that there are many Maori families with high numbers of children, or headed by solo mothers, in the lower sociodemographic groups that affiliate with Mormonism or the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the children in these families will be counted as religious when they may well grow up not to be.

This can be seen if we look at the correlations between having no religion and being in certain age bands. With being aged between 0-4 and having no religion the correlation was -0.22, and with being aged between 5-14 and having no religion the correlation was -0.13. Obviously, children this young have not made the decision to adopt a religion but are simply counted as that of their parents or mother.

Predictably from this, there is a moderately strong correlation between being born in New Zealand and having no religion – this was 0.49.

So it is not surprising, then, that the correlation between being a Pacific Islander and having no religion is a very strong -0.81. This is not quite as strong as the correlation between being born in the Pacific Islands and having no religion: this was -0.86.

This tells us what many already know: that Pacific Island societies are almost entirely religious and that immigrating to New Zealand has the effect – if gradual – of eroding religious conditioning.

The correlation between being Asian and having no religion perfectly mirrored that of being born in New Zealand. Here it was -0.49. Because we can see that the correlation between having no religion and being born in North East Asia is only -0.15, we can guess that the bulk of these religious Asians are Hindus and Muslims from South Asia.

People with no religion were significantly more likely to be born in Britain. The correlation between having no religion and being born in Britain was 0.28.

As has been established in other countries, there is a positive correlation between having no religion and having educational aspirations. The correlation betwen having no religion and having a doctorate was 0.26, and with having an Honours degree it was 0.27. At the other end of the scale, the correlation between having no religion and having no qualification was -0.08.

Working in arts and recreation services was the industry where people are the most likely to not have a religion – the correlation between the two was a strong 0.60. This is probably because this is the industry that requires the most free and unique thought, and that has a negative correlation with religious sentiments.

Other industries working in which had high correlations with being non-religious were construction (0.46), retail trade (0.45), hospitality (0.42) and education and training (0.41).

The simplest way to explain all of these correlations is that they also overlap with being young adults, and the youth (leaving aside the reproduction rates of young solo mothers) are less likely to be religious.

This is not as evident in the numbers as it could be, of course, as has alraedy been explained by immigration patterns. The correlation between having no religion and being in the 15-19 age bracket is 0.02, and with being in the 20-29 age bracket it is 0.01.

These two age brackets correlate positively with being a Pacific Islander, so it’s possible to say that the general Western pattern of people becoming less religious with each passing generation holds true if one looks at Kiwis of European or Maori descent seperately from the confounding factor of recent immigration from a religious culture.

The religious hold true to another stereotype in that they breed at a significantly higher rate than the non-religious. The correlation between having no religion and being in a couple without a child was 0.49, compared to the correlation between having no religion and being in a couple with a child, which was -0.37, or being a solo parent (-0.33).

Perhaps also fitting with the general correlation with youth, the non-religious are significantly less likely to take a private car to work, and like to walk and bike. The correlation with having no religion and taking a private car to work was -0.50, and with walking to work it was 0.37 and with biking to work it was 0.32.

There is a significant correlation between having no religion and belonging to any of the income bands above $40K. The only income band to have a significant negative correlation with having no religion was the loss or no income band: here the correlation was -0.34.

Some might be surprised by the fact that there was a stronger correlation between having no religion and working as a manager (0.49) than there is between having no religion and working as a professional (0.33). The explanation for this might be that relatively more professionals than managers are immigrants and therefore have a nominal adherence to the religion of their ethnic origin.

Finally, the South Island is the godless island: the correlation between living on the South Island and having no religion was a significant 0.29. For the most part this simply reflects the fact that a much higher propertion of South Islanders are New Zealand-born compared to North Islanders.

This article is an excerpt from Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan, published by VJM Publishing in the winter of 2017.