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Name of variable

5. The standard name of the variable is 'Country of Birth of Mother'.

6. This nomenclature was changed from 'Birthplace of Mother' 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.

7. 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 that 'Country of Birth of Mother' statistics and 'Birthplace of Mother' statistics are entirely compatible.


Definition of variable

Nominal definition

8. Nominally, Country of Birth of Mother is defined as the country in which a person's mother was born.

9. Country of Birth of Mother is an attribute of the counting unit 'person'.

Operational definition

10. Operationally, the variable Country of Birth of Mother is defined as the country the respondent identifies as being the one in which their mother was born.

11. 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

12. Country of Birth of Mother identifies the country in which a person's mother was born. This variable is used, in association with variables such as Country of Birth of Person, Country of Birth of Father and First Language Spoken, to measure the extent to which an individual retains their parents' culture, ethnicity or language.

13. Country of Birth of Mother is closely related to the standard variable Country of Birth of Father. The two variables are generally asked together in collections, with Country of Birth of Father traditionally asked first. If space constraints only allow for one question on parents' birthplace, it is recommended that Country of Birth of Mother be asked as, in practice, people are more likely to know their mother's country of birth with a greater degree of certainty than their father's country of birth.