European New Zealanders made up less than 56% of the population in 2023, newly released census data shows, raising concerns they will be a minority by the next survey in 2028.
According to Stats NZ’s data explorer tool for the 2023 Census results, which was launched on Thursday, 2,790,354 New Zealanders listed their ethnicity as “European only” out of a total population of 4,993,923, or 55.9%.
This is down from 59.8% in 2018, and 61.4% in 2013, showing a much faster decrease in the past four years. In 1996 the percentage of Europeans was 82.4%, falling to 79.2% in 2001, and 76.7% in 2006.
In 2023 mixed European and Maori people were 8.3% of the population, “Maori only” were 7.3%, Asians were 15.7%, and those from the Pacific were 5.5%. The remainder were other mixes or other ethnicities.
Stats NZ said on Thursday that Indians were now the third largest ethnic group with 5.8% of the population, followed by Chinese (5.6%), and Samoans (4.3%). Those figures include mixed ethnicities, and include double counts.
The Auckland region is 31.3% Asian and 16.6% Pacific Islander, and was home to 70% of the Korean population and 69.7% of the Chinese population.
Ethnic Maoris increased in every region between 2018 and 2023, and outnumber Europeans 54.8% to 52.4% in Gisborne, while in Tasman and Otago they are 9.9% of the population.
“Just under 30% of New Zealanders were born overseas, and the census recorded well over 200 different birthplaces,” deputy government statistician and deputy chief executive insights and statistics Rachael Milicich said.
“Pretty much every part of the world is represented here, from people born in Iceland in the north, to Argentina in the south.”
Of the “census usually resident population”, 3.5 million people were born in New Zealand and 1.4 million were born overseas.
Political commentator William McGimpsey addressed the numbers in an X post and predicted White New Zealanders would soon fall below 50% of the population.
“Since 1996, New Zealand Europeans have fallen from 82.3% of the population, to just over half now,” he said.
“If the current rates of immigration continue, it is likely NZ Europeans will be an absolute minority of the population at the next census (assuming Stats NZ can even manage to do another one).”
