Most migrant parents since Colonial times (Oz)

[Deleted]

www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/research-shows-most-migrant-parents-since-colonial-times/story-fndo317g-1226468123399

THE number of NSW residents whose parents are both born in Australia has dropped below 50 per cent for the first time in more than 150 years.

Highlighting the evolving face of NSW, the latest census figures showed that last year just 48 per cent of people in the state could claim two Australian-born parents, with more than a third (34 per cent) reporting both parents were born overseas.

In the previous census in 2006, 50 per cent of people had Australian-born parents, while 32 per cent had two foreign-born parents.

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Where both parents were born overseas, the child was most likely to be of English, Chinese or Indian heritage.

According to the most recent NSW Health statistics, the percentage of Australian mothers who gave birth at NSW hospitals dropped from 75.1 per cent in 1990 to 68.3 per cent in 2009.


Overseas-born mothers were most likely to be from the UK, China or New Zealand.

Western Sydney is the local health district with the highest rate of foreign-born mothers, with 17 per cent from southern Asia and 52 per cent from an English-speaking background.

Ancestry.com spokesman Brad Argent said, while record-keeping has changed drastically in the past two centuries, the last time the ratio of NSW people with Australian-born parents sunk below 50 per cent could have been about 1850 during the colonial era.

"What happened around 1850, you're seeing a drop-off in the number of convicts, you're seeing an increase in the number of free settlers coming to Australia," Mr Argent said.

"You have things like the potato famine bringing an enormous number of people from Ireland. You've got convicts having come to Australia for 62 years, so many of them have come and had their own children."

While this is not the first time in our history that more than half the population has parents born overseas, this time those migrants come from many places other than the British Isles and Ireland.

"It's really a cultural turning point for us," Mr Argent said. "While the ratio may have been even lower at some point, it would have been people from other British colonies. What we're seeing now is this huge cultural difference where you're seeing culturally blended families. But they're Australian and that's the wonderful thing."

Social analyst David Chalke said migration levels of 300,000 a year and higher rates of intermarriage were behind the figures. "You've got two things - high levels of migration and growing levels of intermarriage between ethnic groups, which is a good thing because the last thing we want is the development of ghettos," Mr Chalke said.

Audrey Shen, 30, was born in the UK of Chinese heritage, while husband Frank Taylor, 35, was born in New Zealand and is of Maori, Chinese and Scottish heritage.

"It's very importantthat she learns about New Zealand, Chinese and British culture but is brought up to be Australian and to respect the Australian way of life," she said.

[aMrsin09]

That's interesting. H is Australian by birth, but he has no Australian "lineage". His mom was born in the Netherlands and his Dad was born in Croatia.

H is from WA and both of his parents came over as young teens after WWll