European New Zealanders
of European descent are mostly of British and Irish ancestry, with significantly smaller percentages of other European ancestries such as Germans, Poles, French, Dutch, Croats and other South Slavs, European Greeks, and Scandinavians. European New Zealanders are also known by the Māori-language loanword Pākehā.
Statistics New Zealand maintains the national classification standard for ethnicity. European is one of the six top-level ethnic groups, alongside Māori, Pacific, Asian, Middle Eastern/Latin American/African, and Other. Within the top-level European group are two second-level ethnic groups, New Zealand European and Other European. New Zealand European consists of New Zealanders of European descent, while Other European consists of migrant European ethnic groups. Other Europeans also includes some people of indirect European descent, including Americans, Canadians, South Africans and Australians.
According to the 2018 New Zealand census, 3,372,708 people identified as European, with 3,013,440 people identifying as New Zealand European.
History
British Captain James Cook sailed to New Zealand in 1769. Prior to him was Dutchman Abel Tasman in 1642. The establishment of British colonies in Australia from 1788 and the boom in whaling and sealing in the Southern Ocean brought many Europeans to the vicinity of New Zealand. Whalers and sealers were often itinerant and the first real settlers were missionaries and traders in the Bay of Islands area from 1809. Some of the early visitors stayed and lived with Māori tribes as Pākehā Māori. Often whalers and traders married Māori women of high status which served to cement trade and political alliances as well as bringing wealth and prestige to the tribe. By 1830 there was a population of about 800 non-Māori which included a total of about 200 runaway convicts and seamen. The seamen often lived in New Zealand for a short time before joining another ship a few months later.In 1839 there were 1100 Europeans living in the North Island. Violence against European shipping, the ongoing musket wars between Māori tribes, cultural barriers and the lack of an established European law and order made settling in New Zealand a risky prospect. By the late 1830s the average missionary would claim that many Māori were nominally Christian; many of the Māori slaves that had been captured during the Musket Wars had been freed, and cannibalism had been largely stamped out. By this time many Māori, especially in the north, could read and write in their native language and to a lesser extent English.
1840 onwards
European migration has left a deep legacy on the social and political structures of New Zealand. Early visitors to New Zealand included whalers, sealers, missionaries, mariners, and merchants, attracted to natural resources in abundance. They came from the Australian colonies, Great Britain and Ireland, Germany, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United States, and Canada.In 1840 representatives of the British Crown signed the Treaty of Waitangi with 240 Māori chiefs throughout New Zealand, motivated by plans for a French colony at Akaroa and land purchases by the New Zealand Company in 1839. British sovereignty was then proclaimed over New Zealand in May 1840. Some would later argue that the proclamation of sovereignty was in direct conflict with the treaty, which in its Māori version had guaranteed sovereignty to the Māori who signed it. By the end of the 1850s the European and Māori populations were of a similar size as immigration and natural increase boosted European numbers.
Following the formalising of British sovereignty, the organised and structured flow of migrants from Great Britain and Ireland began. Government-chartered ships like the clipper Gananoque and the Glentanner carried immigrants to New Zealand. Typically clipper ships left British ports such as London and travelled south through the central Atlantic to about 43 degrees south to pick up the strong westerly winds that carried the clippers well south of South Africa and Australia. Ships would then head north once in the vicinity of New Zealand. The Glentanner migrant ship of 610 tonnes made two runs to New Zealand and several to Australia carrying 400 tonne of passengers and cargo. Travel time was about 3 to months to New Zealand. Cargo carried on the Glentanner for New Zealand included coal, slate, lead sheet, wine, beer, cart components, salt, soap and passengers' personal goods. On the 1857 passage the ship carried 163 official passengers, most of them government assisted. On the return trip the ship carried a wool cargo worth 45,000 pounds.
In the 1860s discovery of gold started a gold rush in Otago. By 1860 more than 100,000 British and Irish settlers lived throughout New Zealand. The Otago Association actively recruited settlers from Scotland, creating a definite Scottish influence in that region, while the Canterbury Association recruited settlers from the south of England, creating a definite English influence over that region. In the 1860s most migrants settled in the South Island due to gold discoveries and the availability of flat grass-covered land for pastoral farming. The low number of Māori and the absence of warfare gave the South Island many advantages. It was only when the New Zealand wars ended that the North Island again became an attractive destination.
In the 1870s the MP Julius Vogel borrowed millions of pounds from Britain to help fund capital development such as a nationwide rail system, lighthouses, ports and bridges, and encouraged mass migration from Britain. By 1870 the non-Māori population reached over 250,000.
Other smaller groups of settlers came from Germany, Scandinavia, and other parts of Europe as well as from China and India, but British and Irish settlers made up the vast majority, and did so for the next 150 years.
Greek New Zealanders began arriving between 1890 and 1914, before a surge in chain migration after the Second World War. Significant numbers emigrated from indigenous communities outside Greece. Many in the postwar period were not European, having come from Egypt, Cyprus, Turkey, and across the former Ottoman Empire. Greek Cypriot arrivals increased significantly after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974.
Demographics
There were 3,383,742 people identifying as being part of the European ethnic group at the 2023 New Zealand census, making up 67.8% of New Zealand's population. This is an increase of 85,878 people since the 2018 census, and an increase of 414,351 people since the 2013 census. The median age was 41.7 years, compared with 38.1 years for New Zealand as a whole. 604,404 people were aged under 15 years, 612,864 were 15 to 29, 1,477,293 were 30 to 64, and 689,187 were 65 or older.At the 2018 census, there were 1,614,807 males and 1,683,054 females, giving a sex ratio of 0.959 males per female.
In terms of population distribution, 2,401,983 Europeans at the 2023 census lived in the North Island and 981,279 lived in the South Island. The Waimakariri district had the highest concentration of Europeans at 92.1%, followed by the Carterton district, the Tasman district and the Grey district. Europeans are a minority in three districts: the Auckland region, Ōpōtiki district, and Wairoa district. Within Auckland, ten of the 21 local board areas have a minority European population: Ōtara-Papatoetoe, Māngere-Ōtāhuhu, Manurewa, Puketāpapa, Papakura, Whau, Howick, Maungakiekie-Tāmaki, Henderson-Massey, and Upper Harbour.
The first general Census of New Zealand population was taken November–December 1851. Subsequent censuses were taken in 1858, 1861, 1864, 1867, 1871, 1874, 1878 and 1881 and thereafter at five-yearly intervals until 1926. The table shows the ethnic composition of New Zealand population at each census since the early twentieth century. Europeans are still the largest ethnic group in New Zealand. Their proportion of the total New Zealand population has been decreasing gradually since the 1916 Census.
The 2006 Census counted 2,609,592 European New Zealanders. Most census reports do not separate European New Zealanders from the broader European ethnic category, which was the largest broad ethnic category in the 2006 Census. Europeans comprised 67.6 percent of respondents in 2006 compared with 80.1 percent in the 2001 census.
The apparent drop in this figure was due to Statistics New Zealand's acceptance of 'New Zealander' as a distinct response to the ethnicity question and their placement of it within the "Other" ethnic category, along with an email campaign asking people to give it as their ethnicity in the 2006 Census.
In previous censuses, these responses were counted belonging to the European New Zealanders group, and Statistics New Zealand plans to return to this approach for the 2011 Census. Eleven percent of respondents identified as New Zealanders in the 2006 Census, well above the trend observed in previous censuses, and higher than the percentage seen in other surveys that year.
In April 2009, Statistics New Zealand announced a review of their official ethnicity standard, citing this debate as a reason, and a draft report was released for public comment. In response, the New Zealand Herald opined that the decision to leave the question unchanged in 2011 and rely on public information efforts was "rather too hopeful", and advocated a return to something like the 1986 approach. This asked people which of several identities "apply to you", instead of the more recent question "What ethnic group do you belong to?"
- nfd – not further defined
- nec – not elsewhere classified
Alternative terms