Name of variable
5. The standard name of the variable is Country of Birth of Person. It is acceptable to shorten the name of the variable to 'Country of Birth' where this is unlikely to cause confusion.
6. This nomenclature was changed from 'Birthplace' on 16 July 1999 to better describe the geographic units (countries) for which responses are obtained. The term 'Birthplace' could equally describe subsets of countries such as states, regions or towns.
Definition of variable
Nominal definition
7. Nominally, Country of Birth of Person is defined as the country in which a person was born.
8. Country of Birth of Person is an attribute of the counting unit 'person'.
Operational definition
9. Operationally, the variable Country of Birth of Person is defined as the country the respondent identifies as being the one in which they were born.
10. The issue of what constitutes a country is addressed in the topic Classification and coding, or see the Standard Australian Classification of Countries (SACC) (Cat. no. 1269.0).
Discussion of conceptual issues
11. Country of Birth of Person identifies the country in which a person was born. This variable is primarily used to determine whether or not someone is an immigrant, and the country or community group to which they are likely to be attached.
12. The name of the variable was changed from 'Birthplace' to 'Country of Birth of Person' on 16 July 1999. It should be noted that the name change of the variable does not affect the definition, scope or meaning of the concept being measured and 'Country of Birth of Person' statistics and 'Birthplace' statistics are entirely compatible.
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