The Australian Maori Population: Nga Maori Ki Ahitereria by Jeremy LoweReview by: Christine McMurrayJournal of the Australian Population Association, Vol. 7, No. 2 (November 1990), pp. 174-176Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41110593 .

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The last two chapters in the book are Heather Joshi's on the changing forms of women's economic dependency, and Ian Diamond and Sue Qark's on the demography of Britain's ethnic groups. The former examines the relative economic status of men and women, and in trying to explain the gap in male and female earnings, provides some empirical estimates of the opportunity costs of child-rearing. Diamond and Clark's chapter makes for some interesting comparisons with Australia. Britain's sources of immigrants are quite different from Australia's, its non-white migrants coming mainly from South Asia and the West Indies. These groups have quite different family and household structures, stemming from different family values, and the discussion of ethnic differentials in fertility and mortality is very interesting.

Eight of the ten substantive chapters are based on papers prepared for a series of lectures to present the findings of recent demographic research that is relevant to policy makers. The lunchtime lectures were organized by the British Society for Population Studies and the Centre for Economic Policy Research and were meant for an audience from government and non-academic institutions. (Perhaps the Australian Population Association and the demographers at The Australian National University might consider doing something similar in Canberra.) The BSPS and the CEPR should be commended for bringing together this group of British demographers to create this book. Except for some typographical errors, this is an excellent volume on the demography of contemporary Britain.

Siew-Ean Khoo Canberra

References

Khoo, SE. 1989. Rcpartnering after divorce. Paper presented at the Third Australian Family Research Conference.

Roden, M. 1989. Covariates of divorce in Australia: an analysis using proportional hazard models. Journal of the Australian Population Association 6:145-1 63.

Jeremy Lowe. The Australian Maori Population: Nga Maori Ki Ahitereria. Wellington: New Zealand Planning Council. May, 1990.

There has been a considerable amount of research on the emigration of Polynesians to countries on the Pacific Rim (for example, Walsh 1982, Fawcett et ai 1985; Bertram and Watters 1986; Connell 1983-1985; McMurray and Lucas 1989; Connell and McCall 1989; Ahlburg and Levin 1990, Connell (ed.) 1990). Some of this interest has centred on New Zealand as a stepping stone in migration to Australia, especially for Tongans and Western Samoans, but the primary migration of New Zealand Maoris to Australia has received less attention. One reason for this must surely be the difficulty of distinguishing New Zealand Maoris from other New Zealanders, and from other Maoris, in census data and migration statistics. Lowe's paper makes a valiant attempt to do this and thus helps to fill a gap in research on Polynesian migration.

His main source of data is the 1986 Australian census, which asked each person to state up to three ancestral ethnic origins. However, there were many problems with responses to this question (see Khoo 1988), and a major problem for Lowe is that census coders included Cook Island Maoris with New Zealand

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Maoris. Moreover, while the coding index directed Rarotongan and Aitutaki responses to the 'Maori* category, those from other islands in the Cooks, such as Mangaia and Manihiki, were directed to the 'other ancestry' category. As Lowe states:

The Australian census figure for 26,035 persons of Maori ancestry is therefore a statistical mixture. It is neither the figure for New Zealand Maori (which it exceeds) nor the sum of the figures for New Zealand Maori and Cook Island Maori (which it understates) (p.7). Lowe opts to exclude Maoris bom in the Cook Islands and those with both

parents bom in the Cook Islands from most of his analysis, considering only 24,449 to be New Zealand Maoris. This adjusted figure is obviously only a best shot, subject to many sources of reporting error, but it has been derived using acceptable logic and the reader is adequately warned of its limitations.

However, it is less clear why a second adjusted total is presented at the beginning of this paper. The second figure is a round 26,000, to allow for undercounting, temporary absences and those stating Maori only as their third response to the ancestor questioa Apart from being almost the same as the original census figure, it has at least as many potential sources of error as the first adjusted figure. Moreover, it could not be used in the analysis of population characteristics, and made only a slight difference to the overall percentage of New Zealand Maoris resident in Australia. It would have been less confusing for the reader had this adjustment been omitted, or at least confined to the section on population projections, where such refinements are more appropriate.

The core of the paper is the discussion of population composition, use of the Maori language, labour force and employment, duration of residence and return migration. New Zealand census figures and international migration statistics are used to support the findings from the Australian census. The final section on projections shows that the proportion of the Australian resident Maoris could comprise as much as eleven per cent of all New Zealand Maoris by 2011, if 'modest' net immigration levels of 5000 per year continue.

These sections provide useful profiles and comparisons with Maoris in New Zealand, and some with other New Zealanders and with Australians in Australia. However, the value of this paper would have been enhanced had it also included comparisons with other Polynesians in Australia.

One limitation of Lowe's analysis is that it does not show which regions of New Zealand were supplying Maori migrants nor the proportions migrating to urban and rural areas in Australia. While data on place of origin in New Zealand may not be readily available, data on destination could have been obtained from tabulations at census district level. This paper presents data on place of residence only at the state level.

The abundant diagrams are attractive and generally make their points well. A small criticism is that the use of three-dimensional bars in shadow boxes makes it difficult to determine percentages. The text would also have been more user- friendly if it had included more reminders of the size of the denominator in estimates of percentages, given the existence of the three possibilities discussed above.

Generally Lowe has done well with the available data and this work makes a useful research contribution to the field of Polynesian migration. Provided that careful note is taken of the limitations of the census questions and the precise

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of hard data on the Maori in Australia is definitely food for thought. Christine McMurray

Graduate Program in Demography The Australian National University

References

Ahlburg, D. and M. Levin. 1990. The Northeast Passage: Islander Migration to North America, Pacific Research Monograph No. 23. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University.

Bertram, G. and R.F. Watters. 1985. The MIRAB economy in South Pacific microstates. Pacific Viewpoint 26:497-519.

Connell, J. 1983-85. Migration, Development and Employment in the Pacific. Country Reports 1-23. Noumea: South Pacific Commission.

Connell, J. (ed.). 1990. Migration and Development in the South Pacific. Pacific Research Monograph No. 24. Canberra: National Centre for Development Studies, Australian National University.

Connell, J. and G. McCall. 1989. South Pacific islanders in Australia. RIAP Occasional Paper No. 9. Sydney: Research Institute for Asia and the Pacific.

Fawcett, J.T., B.V. Carino and F. Arnold. 1985. Asian-Pacific Immigration to the United States: A Conference Report. Hawaii: East-West Population Institute.

Khoo, Siew-Ean. 1988. The ancestry of Australia's population: A preliminary evaluation of 1986 census data. Paper presented at the Australian Population Association conference, Brisbane, September.

McMurray, C. and D. Lucas. 1989. Pacific island migration to Australia: The 1980s and beyond. Pacific Economic Bulletin 4:32-36.

Walsh, A.C. 1982. Migration, Urbanization and Development in South Pacific Countries. Comparative study on migration, urbanization and development in the ESCAP region. Country Reports No. 6. Bangkok: ESCAP.

Australian Bureau of Statistics. 1990. Australia's children 1989: a statistical profile. ABS Catalogue No. 4119.0. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Austrálias children are the focus of this report which gathers together statistical information on those younger than 15 years and presents a statistical analysis covering a number of areas of social interest. Chapters cover population» family life, income and housing, health, child care, education, crime and justice, and substitute care.

Australian Bureau of Statistics. 1990. Perinatal deaths, Australia, 1988. ABS Catalogue No. 3304.0. Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics.

In 1988 there were 2637 perinatal deaths recorded in Australia, of which 1473 were foetal deaths (stillbirths) and 1164 were neonatal deaths (children bom alive who died within 28 days of birth). The 1988 perinatal death rate was 10.7 deaths per 1000 births, compared with 10.6 in 1987. Data provided include sex, time of death, birthweight, maternal age and causes of death.

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