Citizenship/ residence status

Nau mai haere mai and welcome to the 2018 Census discussion on Citizenship/ residence status.

Please see pgs 27-28 of the Preliminary view of 2018 Census content through the link provided above, for the rationale underpinning Statistics NZ current recommendation on this topic, that citizenship/ residence status not be included in the 2018 Census.

Statistics NZ welcomes your discussion and feedback on this recommendation, to help ensure that the 2018 Census reflects the information needs of our customers.

The online engagement discussion process will run from the 30th April until the 30th June 2015 (note this period has been extended from that flagged initially), with formal submissions open from 18th May to 30th June 2015. Remember that your best opportunity for influencing and helping shape the content of the 2018 Census is to make a formal submission. We look forward to hearing your views.

I'm not sure if this section is the right fit but there is a real lack of information in NZ on people who are here as former refugees (citizenship status notwithstanding). This makes it very hard to know how big the communities are in each region and therefore to provide adequate services for them.

Hi @alexiagarbutt - thank you for your post. This topic is probably one to raise under our "other" topic category. As you will know refugee status is assessed in accordance with the Immigration Act 2009, with a person's status as a refugee strictly defined under various conventions and protocols. Therefore as you flag it is a separate concept to citizenship and residence status accepting that some of these people as refugees may go on to acquire such status. Numbers also may not be large enough to be helpful as data outputs at a community level.

How can there be difficulty measuring citizenship?

Not sure about this one. Seems like an interesting question but not sure what I would use it for. More interested perhaps in where people were born.

Welcome @Lisa and @ellenblake and thank you for your posts on this topic.
Previous consultation by Statistics NZ on this topic has indicated that the specific information needs of policy agencies in relation to citizenship/residence status vary considerably. It is thought that it would require multiple questions to meet all these information needs and is currently considered that these would be reasonably difficult and overly technical for respondents to answer in a self-completed questionnaire. An example of the required question complexity is that which was used in the 2006 Kea NZ "census" of expat New Zealanders
Which of these best describes your relationship to NZ? (select one)
- I am a NZ citizen because I was born in NZ
- I am a NZ citizen because I was born out of NZ to parents who were NZ citizens
- I came to NZ as an immigrant, and now I am a naturalized NZ citizen
- I am a Permanent Resident of NZ, but not a citizen
- I was formerly a NZ citizen, but I no longer hold this status
- I was formerly a Permanent Resident of NZ, but I no longer hold this status
- Other

Information on New Zealand citizenship and residency status is currently collected administratively by the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) and the NZ Immigration Service when issuing NZ passports or residency permits. DIA also collects the number of people gaining citizenship by region of birth through administrative data however the number of NZ citizens by descent (ie: children born overseas to a NZ-born NZ citizen) who have not registered their citizenship cannot presently be counted, with ethnic identifications or national affiliations of these individuals and their families unknown.
Therefore although some information is available, difficulties in measuring citizenship arise (see other examples on pgs 27 -28 of the preliminary view of 2018 Census content and it can therefore be argued that census is perhaps not the best way to collect the details to distinguish between different citizenship, residency and visa statuses.
Acquisition of legal citizenship may also be relevant to understanding national identity, social cohesion and civic participation with the social connectedness of migrants and the tracking of differing outcomes for different migrant groups among the policy interests in this area. The NZ General Social Survey will collect information on these topics among others in its supplement in 2016 on Civic and Cultural Participation. Analysis of migrant outcomes is possible in this survey through data collected on generational attachment where information about the generational length of residence a person’s family has been in New Zealand is deduced by finding out whether the person /people who raised the respondent were born in New Zealand or not, and whether the respondent was born in New Zealand or not. From this a measure of the number of generations in New Zealand associated with the respondent is derived and their migrant status if applicable - eg: first generation, second generation or third generation.

As always however we are interested in hearing about people's views and information needs with regard to data on citizenship and residency status and would be pleased to read people's thoughts on this matter.

Thanks for your answer Henriette

It would be interesting to find out how many NZ Citizens/Permanent Resident who resides in NZ and own their own homes? I would vote for a retention of the question.

Hi @DavidSchaaf and thank you for your comments. At present questions about citizenship and residency status are not included in the Census content - see my post above for some of the rationale as to why. What would people's thoughts be on the nature of the questions required to determine citizenship/residency status (see above for some examples), their potential complexity and people's general ability to answer these in a self completed form?

Thanks Henriette. I still think it would be great to include this question in the future census. I have read p27 to 28 of the document and have seen the different categories you have provided of what might be asked. I think it would be a lost opportunity. You have used the Cook Islands as an example but they are a minority and could fit into any of the categories you have put forward. The bigger policy question which I think a question on Citizenship would provide some answer on is, how many people in the categories you have described above cross tabulated with the housing tenure given the Auckland housing situation.