WELLINGTON, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's ethnic group populations are expected to grow over the next two decades, with a significant increase to be seen in the Asian, Maori and Pacific communities, statistics department Stats NZ said on Thursday.
As New Zealand's population becomes increasingly ethnically diverse, one in three children are likely to identify as Maori by the early 2040s, whereas the "European or Other" ethnic population is projected to reduce its share of the total population from 70 percent in 2018 to 65 percent in 2043, Stats NZ said.
The broad Asian ethnic group is made up of people from many ethnicities, including Chinese and Indian. The median projection indicates that New Zealand's Asian population is likely to surpass 1 million by the late 2020s, it said.
The Indian subgroup of the Asian population is projected to double from 2018 to 2043 and could surpass half a million people by the early 2040s, it added.
Later in the 2020s, the broad Pacific population is expected to surpass half a million at a similar time, Stats NZ said.
Among the youngest age group, projections from 2018 to 2043 indicate that the share of children within the Asian ethnic group will increase from 16 percent to 25 percent, which means about one in four Asians in New Zealand are children in 2043, population estimates and projections acting manager Rebekah Hennessey said in a statement.
The overall Asian population could increase from 16 percent to 24 percent of New Zealand's population over the same period, Hennessey said.
Roughly 60 percent of the growth in the Asian population are projected to come from net migration, and about 40 percent by natural increase, or births minus deaths, she said. ■
