Consistency of ancestry reporting between parents and children in the 1986 census

The author examines responses to a question on ancestry that was included in the 1986 census of Australia, with a focus on consistencies between the responses of parents and children. It is found that "the level of consistency was more than 90 per cent when both parents were of the same ancestry; when parents were of different or mixed ancestries, the level of consistency was lower. It was estimated that about 75 per cent of all dependent children had an ancestry response consistent with that of the parent or parents with whom they lived."