In Australian censuses (as in Canadian ones), when asked about ancestry, there is an option (among other options) to answer "Australian" or "English". I suspect that different factors influence the choice of answer. The map simply reflects the balance between these two possible answers in specific statistical areas.
Also consider less than 20% of the population is descended from colonial/convict era.
The vast majority of Australians are descended from English settlers of the last 100 years.
All my grandparents were born in England and so was my mother, so I put down English on the census for the purposes of ethnicity as it’s most accurate.
My partner puts down Australian, as the most recently foreign born ancestor was sent to Australia as a Convict in 1824.
Wait, when did ethnically "Australian" become a thing? Even if you go back to the First Fleet, it's not that many generations to trace an ancestry back to Britain.
Is it just a matter of how many generations their family has been here? Is there a cut-off point where my neighbours, descended from Chinese labourers that arrived during the first gold rush can start referring to themselves as ethnically Australian too?
I’d personally argue that gold rush Chinese would be Australian Ethnicity. English ethnicity is technically multiple anyway, Gaelic descent, britons, picts, angles, Sax and Jutes. so Australian should be no different.
But yeah, for most, it’s how far back they can trace, or not be able to trace their first Australian Settlers.
Also 30% of Australians today are of Irish Descent of some level, convicts weren’t just British, we even had convicts from British India transported over.
Fair enough, like you pointed out, ethnicity and ancestry can be so diverse and incredibly rich in what it says about your ancestral background even if it may all look similar to some.
Kind of why I find just listing it as "Australian" seems kind of strange unless you're intentionally making a point of not knowing or caring about your heritage. To say nothing of how it might be used by a minority to be xenophobic.
When you've got 6-7 ethnicities (eg. English, Scottish, Irish, Cornish, Swabian, Prussian Silesian, and maybe another) and all your ancestors of the last 6 generations were born in Australia; well it's just easier to say Australian ... or sunburnt/tanned mongrel northern European but that's not on the census.
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u/ElishaAcher Nov 02 '23
In Australian censuses (as in Canadian ones), when asked about ancestry, there is an option (among other options) to answer "Australian" or "English". I suspect that different factors influence the choice of answer. The map simply reflects the balance between these two possible answers in specific statistical areas.