Kiwi workers say “don’t know” to more migrants?

Or perhaps not. It’s hard to tell.

The Herald’s headline is “Kiwi workers say ‘no’ to more migrants”, with the reported data apparently being on ethnic diversity in the workplace, rather than migration

• 27% want more
• 33% want less
• 40% not sure

Now, the difference between 27% and 33% is smaller than the margin of sampling error based on 200 NZ respondents (and much smaller than the usual ‘maximum margin of error’ calculation), but that’s not the main issue.

Another problem is that “More migrants” is not the same as “more ethnic diversity”, and it’s certainly not the same as “more non-English-speaking background”, which the story also mentions.  (I’m a migrant, I’m from an English-speaking background, and I don’t think preferring Aussie Rules to rugby is the sort of ethnic diversity they had in mind).

More important, though, is the question of whether this is a real survey or a bogus poll.   The story doesn’t say.  If you ask the Google, it points you to a webpage where you can participate in the survey,

In order to continue to provide the most current insights into our modern workplace we need your valuable input.

which is certainly an indicator of bogosity.

On the other hand, Leadership Management Australasia, who run the survey, also give some summary reports.  One report says

The survey design and implementation is overseen by an experienced, independent research practitioner and the systems and process used to conduct the survey ensure valid, reliable and representative samples.

which seems to argue for a real survey (though not as convincingly as if they’d actually named the independent research practitioner).   So perhaps the self-selected part of the sample isn’t all of it, and perhaps they do some sensible reweighting?

If you look at the demographic profile of the survey, though, at least two-thirds of the participants are male, even at the non-managerial level.  Now, in both NZ and Australia, male employment is higher than female, but it’s not twice as high.  The gender profiles are definitely not representative.  So even if the survey is making some efforts to be a representative sample, it isn’t succeeding.

[Updated to add: in case it’s not clear, in the last paragraph, I’m talking about the summary report for second quarter 2011]