Examining the demographic profile of the migrants by period of arrival reveals that the age, gender and marital status composition of the Scots differed significantly by time.
Table 4.8
Ratio of Scottish female migrants to every 100 Scottish male migrants in each period of arrival
Pre-1852 1853-1870 1871-1886 1887-1900 1901-1920
82.55 79.36 87.49 67.01 84.16
n = 659 2,816 1,708 162 558
Source: NZSG data 1840-1920
As indicated in Table 4.8, between 1852 and 1870 and in the period 1887 to 1900 proportionately more Scottish males than females arrived in New Zealand than at other times. The earlier period was marked by increased employment opportunities for men, the gold rushes creating employment for males not only in mining but across
the board, the population boom resulting from the rushes creating a larger market for basic goods and services and a greater need for housing. The consequent influx of male migrants thus reduced the ratio of females in that period. It is conceivable that the decrease in the ratio of females to males in the later period was due to the availability of fewer employment opportunities for female migrants than usual. The period witnessed economic depression in the late 1880s and slow economic recovery in the early 1890s and it is likely these economic factors decreased demand for domestic servants and consequently also for female migrants. Certainly there was a decrease in domestic service employment across New Zealand, from 53.6 per cent of all employed females in 1886 to 46.16 per cent in 1891.37 The discontinuation of assistance for nominated immigrants in December 1887 also undoubtedly affected the flow of female migrants into New Zealand, more so than the flow of males, further reducing the number of females compared to males arriving over this period.38
The highest ratio of females to males is observed for migrant arrivals during the period 1871 to 1886, almost certainly as a result of the emphasis on family migration and on the recruitment of single female migrants to meet the demand for domestic servants in the colony. Even so, the NZSG data suggests a much higher female to male ratio for this period than that postulated by Morris in his 1973 study. Morris records a 67.76:100 ratio of females to males,39 whilst analysis of the NZSG data produces a ratio of 90.34:100 for the same nine year period (1871-1879).40 The reason behind this difference of nearly twenty-three females per 100 males between the samples probably lies with the higher proportions of females contributed by counties in the Highlands compared to Eastern and Western Lowland counties in the NZSG sample for this period. Morris notes that ‘the Lowland area of Scotland in which Lanarkshire was the most important recruitment county… sent a considerable number of women’.41 While this finding is borne out in the NZSG data for the period 1840 to
37 The decrease in domestic service employment among females in the population of New Zealand as a
whole from 53.6 per cent of all employed females in 1886 to 46.16 per cent in 1891 (45.27 per cent in 1896 and 44.18 per cent in 1901) may also indicate this phenomenon. Part VII, Table I (also Table III for 1881 and 1886), 1881, 1886, 1891, 1896 and 1901 Censuses of New Zealand
38 Terry Hearn and Jock Phillips, ‘‘Immigration study findings’, unpublished manuscript, Part 4: The
great migration, 1870-1890’, c.2007, available at: http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/home-away- from-home/sources, p.38
39 40.39:59.61 in his text. Calculation: 59.61/100=1.677570877; 40.39*1.677570877=67.75708774
females to every 100 males. Morris, ‘The Assisted Immigrants to New Zealand’, p.154.
40 For the period 1871 to 1886 the NZSG ratio is 87.49:100 41 Morris, ‘The Assisted Immigrants to New Zealand’, p.154.
1920 as a whole (see Table 4.2 above and relevant discussion), the NZSG data suggest that females constituted a larger proportion of migrants in the Far North and Highland Region counties than in the Lowland and Border counties in the Vogel period. Table 4.9 shows the ratio of females per 100 males arriving from each region of Scotland for each period under analysis.
Table 4.9
Ratio of Scottish female migrants in each period of arrival to every 100 Scottish male migrants, by region of birth
Pre-1852 1853-1870 1871-1886 1887-1900 1901-1920 Far North 40.00 76.47 98.65 50.00 30.00 Highlands 66.00 75.93 93.00 43.75 64.00 North East 79.41 65.19 75.76 56.00 84.00 Eastern Lowlands 84.25 76.46 85.94 142.86 96.55 Western Lowlands 90.59 87.81 90.57 36.67 84.91 Borders 50.00 70.29 73.63 77.78 60.00 n 659 2,816 1,708 162 558 Source: NZSG data 1840-1920
Both the Far North and the Highlands contributed higher proportions of females to males than the Lowland regions or the Borders between 1871 and 1886.
Another contrast between the Morris findings and the results of the NZSG data analysis is the number of counties ‘throughout the whole of Scotland’ where ‘females [were] dominant among the immigrants’.42 Morris records female ‘dominance’ – females accounting for more than 50 per cent of the migrants – in Shetland, Kincardine, East Lothian and Midlothian. For the period 1871 to 1886 the NZSG data shows female ‘dominance’ in twelve counties. Discounting those counties for which the sub-samples are too small for reliable inferences, these counties are, in order of female ‘dominance’: Midlothian (56.86 per cent); Renfrewshire (55.56 per cent); Ross and Cromarty (52.99 per cent); Shetland (51.28 per cent); Caithness (50.98 per cent); and Inverness (50 per cent). That counties in the Far North and Highlands frequently exhibit ratios of females to males that are higher than the Eastern or Western Lowlands or Borders, indicates that while female assisted immigrants in the Vogel years may have mostly been from ‘Lowland’ counties, the Far North and Highland counties sent proportionately more females than ‘Lowland’ counties during that period.
A notable feature of analysis of age by period of arrival is the relative youth of the migrants arriving prior to 1886 compared to the later periods (see Table 4.10).
Table 4.10
Age statistics for Scots migrants in New Zealand by period of arrival
Pre-1852 1853-1870 1871-1886 1887-1900 1901-1920
n 651 2,722 1,686 160 553
Mean 21.91 23.74 23.10 26.86 24.10
Mode 4 & 8 23 1 26, 27 & 33 23
Minimum 0 -2* 0 0 0 Lower Quartile 10 12 11 15 12 Median 20 23 21 26 23 Upper Quartile 32 32 32 36.75 34 Maximum 74 80 75 75 76 ‘Outliers’** 65+ 62+ 62+ 66.75+ 64+
* Two of the migrants recorded in the register have arrival dates that precede their date of birth, one by one year, and one by two years.
** Upper Quartile + 1.5 x the Inter Quartile Range (Upper Quartile minus Lower Quartile) Source: NZSG data, 1840-1920
The average (mean) ages of those arriving pre-1852 and between 1871 and 1886 are brought down by the modal tendencies (most common age) for these periods; this is very young, the mode being four and eight years old for pre-1852 and just one year old between 1871 to 1886. Conversely, those arriving between 1887 and 1900 tended to be older, with an average age of 26.85 and a shared most common age of twenty- six, twenty-seven and thirty-three. While one quarter of the migrants arriving pre- 1852 and between 1871 and 1886 were under ten and eleven respectively, this lower quartile figure for 1887 to 1900 is fifteen years of age. The youth of the migrants in the earlier periods was almost certainly a result of the recruitment of assisted migrants, with the inherent age restrictions and emphasis on family migration that assistance implied. During those years in which assistance was not available, or not so readily available, older migrants were proportionately more numerous, probably because they were more likely, relative to families with young children, to be able to access resources to fund their migration themselves. Further, in years during which assistance was not so readily available the flow of migrants from elsewhere, especially from across the Tasman, became proportionately more significant, and many of these step-migrants would have been older.
Table 4.11
Ratio of Scottish female child migrants in each period to every 100 Scottish male child migrants
Pre-1852 1853-1870 1871-1886 1887-1900 1901-1920 Total
102.40 94.43 84.52 64.00 83.67 91.72
n = 253 838 596 41 180 1,923
Analysis of the NZSG data in respect of the ratio of female to male children arriving in each period of arrival (Table 4.11) indicates further significant differences over time. While Erickson’s suggestion that families with male children were more likely than those with female children to emigrate appears to be borne out among New Zealand’s Scots from the 1870s, the ratio of male and female children was closer in the first two periods of arrival. Though the very low ratio noted in the 1887-1900 period is, once again, more likely due to small sample size than any real difference, the difference between the ratio of female to male children in the Vogel and in the early twentieth-century periods is a significant decrease from that seen in the first two periods. There is no obvious explanation for this divergence. Indeed, it is fair to say that analysis of the variation in demographic indices according to period is in general less fruitful for the NZSG data than spatial analysis according to place of origin or place of settlement. Some of the reasons for why this is so are linked to the ways that methodological issues affect the NZSG data to differing extents depending on period of arrival, as will be discussed in the following section.
TESTING THE GENEALOGICALLY SOURCED DATA SET – COMPARISON WITH THE