history – Page 72

Understanding New Zealand: Demographics of Age

Some might be surprised by how much those aged from 30 to 49 dominate the bulk of the income earning in New Zealand. The correlation between being in this age group and median personal income was 0.73.

The correlation between being in the 50 to 64 age group and median personal income was almost, but not quite, significant, at 0.18. Some might find this surprising given that people in this age bracket tend to comprise the bulk of the senior positions in industry and government.

The reason for it is that there are very few such people, and the majority of the people in this age bracket reflect the educational standards of half a century ago, which were considerably lower.

The main reason why the bulk of the wealth is in the 30 to 49 age bracket is that this is also where the bulk of the education is. Being in this age bracket has a correlation of 0.60 with having a Master’s degree.

Most people are well aware that the bulk of old Kiwis are of European descent. And so, the correlation between being of European descent and being in the 65+ age bracket is 0.67, and with being in the 50-64 age bracket it is 0.71.

There are still many people of European descent in the younger age brackets, but the proportion of Maoris in these brackets is relatively much higher. The correlation between being Maori and being in the 0-4 age bracket is a very strong 0.82. For being in the 5-14 age bracket it is even stronger, at 0.85.

Pacific Islander Kiwis have positive correlations with all of the young age brackets, but they are only significant with the youngest two. Being a Pacific Islander and being aged 0-4 had a correlation of 0.44, and with being aged 5-14 it was 0.27.

The age of Asians reflect the strong correlation between being Asian and being foreign born, which was an extremely strong 0.91. Because so many Asian New Zealanders are foreign born, they will have had to have gone through the immigration system, which puts a high priority on young people who can work and pay taxes for a long time.

And so, there is a correlation of 0.49 between being aged 20-29 and being Asian, as well as a correlation of 0.57 between being aged 30-49 and being Asian.

One could surmise from the above that there is a significant correlation between being born overseas and being in the 20-29 age bracket (0.38) and being in the 30-49 age bracket (0.61). This reflects the fact that our points-based immigration system prioritises letting in those who have a large number of productive years ahead of them.

Some industries are well-known for being filled with people of a certain age group. Few readers will be surprised that there is a correlation of 0.51 with being aged 20-29 and working in the hospitality industry. There is also a predictable correlation of 0.37 between being aged 20-29 and working as a sales worker.

Some might be surprised at some of the correlations between age and income. There is a correlation of 0.25 with having an income of $150K+ and being aged in the 20-29 age bracket, and a a correlation of 0.24 with having an income of $100-150K and being in that age bracket.

The reason for this may be clear to anyone who has read the education chapter already. Young adults are often very well educated because of the liberalisation of access to higher education, and correspondingly there is a correlation of 0.53 with being aged 20-29 and being a professional. This is only marginally lower that the correlation of 0.55 with being aged 30-49 and being a professional, despite the much larger number of people in the latter group.

Those in the 30-49 age bracket, however, make up the vast bulk of Kiwi economic activity. This age bracket has a significant positive correlation for every income band above $50K. The most notable was a correlation of 0.60 between this age bracket and the $100-150K income band.

On the subject of the 20-29 age bracket, there was also a significant correlation between this and being in the two lowest income bands. Being aged 20-29 had a correlation of 0.57 with having an income between $0-5K, and a correlation of 0.47 with having an income between $5-10K.

The 30-49 age bracket, by contrast, has a significiant negative correlation with being in both of those income bands. Here it is -0.27 with being in the $0-5K income band and -0.42 with being in the $5-10K band.

As Kiwis get older than this, there are fewer who have extremely high incomes and fewer who have extremely low incomes. The bulk are in the comfortable middle zone. This may be because previous generations were more egalitarian in their outlook

It can be seen when our culture generally started to go off the idea of smoking cigarettes – it was in the mid 1980s. We know this because the 30-49 age bracket has a correlation of 0.58 with having never smoked, which stands in stark contrast with the figure for the 50-64 age bracket, which was -0.02.

People don’t seem to mind walking to work in their twenties. The correlation between walking to work and being aged 20-29 was 0.68. The next age bracket – people between 30 and 49 – had a correlation with walking to work of -0.02, which was much, much lower. This will reflect both increasing physical difficulty, naturally increasing laziness, an increase in the means to maintain a private vehicle and an increase in the desire to keep up the appearance of a certain social status.

Older people were significantly more likely to be South Islanders. Being in the 50-64 age bracket had a correlation of 0.33 with being in the South Island, and the 65+ age bracket had one of 0.27 with living there.

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 Pacific Islanders

Many people, especially foreigners, tend to blithely assume that Maoris are more or less the same as Pacific Islanders, and could perhaps be placed in the same demographic category. Leaving aside the fact that both Maoris and Pacific Islanders would mostly object to this, there are statistical differences between the two groups that make them distinct.

The most notable thing about the Pacific Islander population is their love of the Labour Party. The correlation between being a Pacific Islander and voting Labour in 2014 was a very strong 0.78. For the most part, this simply reflects the degree to which Pacific Islanders in New Zealand tend to be working class.

The correlation between being a Pacific Islander and median personal income was -0.29, which is enough to suggest that the majority of them have an interest in voting for a left of centre party. There is also the correlation of 0.50 between being a Pacific Islander and working in the transport, postal and warehousing industries.

Predictably, then, there is a negative correlation between being a Pacific Islander and voting National, and this was -0.46. It’s worth noting that the Maori antipathy towards National was as strong as the Pacific Islander love of Labour, whereas the Maori love of Labour and Pacific Islander antipathy towards National were not as strong.

Perhaps reflecting the significant correlation between being a Pacific Islander and being born overseas (0.38), there is no significant correlation between being a Pacific Islander and voting New Zealand First in 2014 – this was -0.08.

Some believe that the Greens, in so far as they are a leftist party, get votes from socially disadvantaged people, but Pacific Islanders don’t see much in Green Party rhetoric to attract them. The correlation between being a Pacific Islander and voting Greens in 2014 was -0.27. Given that Pacific Islanders are not as socially disadvantaged as Maori, they might be the obvious next propaganda target for the Greens.

The votes for other parties reflected the dominance of Labour in the political minds of Pacific Islanders. They did not at all follow Maoris into voting for Internet MANA or the Maori Party – the correlation between being a Pacific Islander and voting Internet MANA in 2014 was 0.07, and for voting Maori Party in 2014 it was 0.01.

Neither were Pacific Islanders particularly interested in the far right of the spectrum. The correlation between being a Pacific Islander and voting ACT in 2014 was 0.06, which was not significant, and even this probably reflects the fact that ACT voters and Pacific Islanders both mostly live in Auckland more than it reflects any genuine ACT support among them.

Given the preponderance of religion and religious fundamentalism among Pacific Islanders in New Zealand, some might be surprised that the correlation between being a Pacific Islander and voting Conservative in 2014 was a significantly negative -0.29. However, the bulk of the Conservative Party vote was from the Anglican-Presbytarian-Baptist-Brethren axis and Pacific Islanders seldom belong to these movements.

Probably the largest difference in terms of magnitude for any one political party was with the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party, voting for which in 2014 had a correlation of -0.10 with being a Pacific Islander, in contrast with 0.89 with being Maori. Possibly reflecting the Christian fundamentalist influence still, Pacific Islanders are vastly different to Maori when it comes to attitudes towards cannabis.

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

Understanding New Zealand: Demographics of Christians

The Abrahamist tradition of Christianity has come to New Zealand in several waves, each one contributing to the replacement of traditional Maori spiritual practice, most of which has now been forgotten. But just who are the numerous followers of this Middle Eastern cult in New Zealand?

The statistic that will surprise many people is that there is no significant correlation between being of European descent and being Christian in New Zealand – this was -0.07. There are several reasons for this.

The most obvious is that, when people in New Zealand think ‘Christian’, they usually, without realising it, think ‘Anglican’ or, especially on the South Island, ‘Presbytarian’. The correlation between being Anglican and being of European descent is a strong 0.60, and that between being Presbytarian and being of European descent is 0.40.

Christians are much more likely to be Pacific Islanders than they are either Maoris or Asians. The correlation between being a Christian and being a Pacific Islander is 0.46, compared to -0.37 for being Maori and 0.03 for being Asian. Predictably, given all of these statistics, there is a significant negative correlation between being born in New Zealand and being Christian (-0.24).

Old New Zealand and New New Zealand divide sharply in attitudes towards Catholicism. There is a correlation of -0.27 between being of European descent and being a Catholic, and a correlation of -0.28 with being Maori and being Catholic. This contrasts with the correlation of 0.40 between being a Pacific Islander and being Catholic and the correlation of 0.42 with being Asian and being Catholic.

The obvious explanation for this is the strong negative correlation between being Catholic and having been born in New Zealand, which was -0.41.

Attitudes towards Mormonism, on the other hand, divide European New Zealanders from the others. Kiwis of European descent are highly unlikely to be Mormons: the correlation between the two is -0.71. Asians are mostly indifferent, with a correlation of 0.07, but Mormons are very likely to be Maori (the correlation between the two is 0.54) and even more likely to be Pacific Islanders (the correlation there is 0.68).

The reason for this is Mormons are generally quite hard done by. The correlation between being Mormon and median personal income is -0.46. Likewise, being a Mormon is negatively correlated with having any of the four university degrees. This reflects a deliberate strategy on the part of the Mormon church to target vulnerable people with their propaganda, knowing that the more desperate someone is the more likely they are to fall prey to a religion.

It could be predicted from the above that Anglicans and Presbytarians are signficantly more likely to be old. And they are – the correlation between median age and being Anglican is 0.56, and between median age and being Presbytarian it is 0.43.

Being Christian had a significant negative correlation with having a university degree, and looking closer at this shows a few distinctions. Being Catholic was positively correlated with having a Bachelor’s degree (0.37), with having an Honours degree (0.31) and with having a Master’s degree (0.37), which went against the general trend.

It was the mystery category of ‘Christian not further defined’ that caused the overall correlations between being Christian and having a university degree to be negative. Being ‘Christian not further defined’ had a correlation of -0.24 with having a Bachelor’s degree, -0.37 with having an Honours degree, -0.26 with having a Master’s degree and -0.39 with having a doctorate.

For both Maoris and Pacific Islanders, the correlation between being in this category was greater than it was for people of European descent or Asians. So this category may contain the various Christians that have not been raised in a particular subreligion (such as Anglicanism), i.e. adult converts, who as a rule have it worse than adults who follow the religion they were raised into.

Working in no industry had a positive correlation with being Christian, but many had negative correlations. The strongest was between being Christian and working in the arts and recreation services. This was a very strong -0.63. Perhaps the reason for this is that people who work in arts are iconoclastic by their very nature, as most creative people are, and therefore reject religious tradition.

There was also a strong negative correlation between being Christian and working in administrative and support services (-0.52), accommodation (-0.49), education and training (-0.48) and information media and telecommunications (-0.40). The most likely explanation for at least some of these is that Christians tend to be much older than the average worker in these industries.

There is also a significant negative correlation between being a Christian and being a professional (-0.42), reflecting the generally poor academic achievements of Christians.

Perhaps reflecting a general middle-of-the-road conservatism, being Christian had a negative correlation with being in all of the income bands below $15K and all of the bands above $50K. This was not the case for Catholics, who had a correlation of 0.30 with being in the $100-150K income band and a correlation of 0.24 with being in the $150K+ band.

Reflecting a combination of age, seniority and political dominance, there was a significant correlation between being Anglican and being a manager – this was 0.44.

The point about political dominance and disenfranchisement is underlined by the significant positive correlations between turnout rate in 2014 and being Anglican (0.41) and between turnout rate in 2014 and being Presbytarian (0.32). Contrast this with the very strong -0.68 between turnout rate in 2014 and being Mormon.

Presbytarians are very strong on the South Island, refecting the strong Scottish influence there. The correlation between being a Presbytarian and being a South Islander is 0.56.

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

Is this the Age of the Pleb?

There are many systems of thought that describe various times, epochs or ages that humanity appears to pass through on its collective historical journey through the Great Fractal. Plato’s Republic described it alchemically, the Hindu cosmology describes it in a similar fashion and many other traditions have a time of increasing disorder leading to a climactic revolution.

In Republic, Plato laid out how culture disintegrates over time. Society begins in a Golden Age, according to Socrates in Book VIII, and gradually deteriorates.

It begins with rulers who put virtue above all, and who accordingly cannot own property. Because of the errors that these good people inevitably make as a consequence of being fallible, they are replaced by an inferior and greedier set of rulers.

Eventually the greed of the society leads to money being lent out at high rates of interest, which inevitably concentrates wealth in the hands of a very few. Society degenerates further into the rule of the mob, when doing whatever one wishes to do is the only value.

Here there is little of the higher order that an alchemist would associate with gold, silver or iron. Indeed, the men of gold have vanished by the time it comes to democracy. The man of clay takes charge by convincing the man of iron that the man of silver wishes to enslave him, and by convincing the man of silver that the man of iron wishes to kill him, and so ensures that those two mutually destroy each other.

The Hindu timeline tells a fantastic – and weirdly similar – story. Each Great Year, or Age of Man, or Maha Yuga, itself consists of four smaller Yugas.

The first of these, the Satya Yuga, is also known as the Age of Truth, and it corresponds very closely to what an alchemist would call a Golden Age and what Plato would have called rule by aristocracy. Here it is the gods that are, rightly, in charge of their creation, and everyone knows their correct place.

In the next age, the Treta Yuga, righteousness gradually diminishes. An alchemist would call this an Age of Silver – spirituality begins to give way to materialism, and kings and rulers must use cunning to get their will through, no longer able to rely on the confidence that the ruled have in them.

The final stage is the Kali Yuga, which is known in Hinduism as a Dark Age.

Both of these systems of thought, like the Norse Ragnarok and the Abrahamist Armageddon, suggest that the human experience starts good and gradually gets worse until it has to be restarted in violent revolution. Before we get to this point, however, things have to become genuinely terrible.

An alchemist might point to the immense population surge of the last 150 years and declare that this must be the time of the man of clay, because it appears that no longer does anything other than sex matter. People breed mindlessly, with no thought to the long-term benefit of their actions or whether more offspring are desirable, and so the human population has exploded.

A consequence of this is a resurgence of lowest common denominator culture. American popular culture seems to have sunk to an almost childish level, with the people happy to accept any display of gross incompetence or unfitness for leadership from their ruling class.

In New Zealand it can be seen with the increasing media attention given to soccer, which is the McDonalds of world sports, at the expense of excellent sports such as rugby and cricket, and with the degeneration of the nation’s most popular media portals into click-baiting drivel.

Perhaps all of these systems of thought are all correct and we are currently living in the Age of the Pleb, ruled by the worst among us, and by the worst instincts within ourselves.

The good news is that, in all systems of thought that warn us of such a thing, the Age of the Pleb is always replaced by a new Golden Age.

To some extent, how this develops is inevitable. The man of gold, born into the age of the man of clay, finds himself impelled to take action. The degree of degeneration strikes him as obscene, and out of righteous anger he takes action.

This action usually has the effect of bringing fire into the world to burn away the rot and filth of the Age of the Pleb. Sometimes this means war – and with a massive and still-growing human population creating ever more pressure on ever depleting natural resources, this seems very possible.

The other way we might exit the Age of the Pleb is by a fiery revolution of thought, in which the mental cobwebs of long-decayed religions are burned away by righteous fire and the brutal monkey instincts at the bottom of our brains are tamed and sublimated into something valuable.