After hearing a comment on a TV show this morning I was doing some research into circumcision in New Zealand. This was not to help decide whether or not Max will be circumcised – Vic and I are in complete accordance on this (he won’t be)
The TV show said that the overall rate of male circumcision in New Zealand was less than one percent! I didn’t have a particular figure in mind, I just thought it would be higher. I seems that your ethnic background has a massive influence in whether or not you’ll be circumcised – understandable if we’re talking, for example, Jews vs non-Jews but it seems that the overriding infulence was your racial roots. The figures were as follows:
? Maori – pretty much 0% as it’s never part of their culture
? Pacific Islanders – pretty much 100% as it always has been part of their culture
? Pakeha (European New Zealanders) – Less than 0.5% (as of 1995)
Another very interesting trend is that the percentage for the first two groups has stayed constant whereas the figure for Pakeha was at a high of 95% in 1950 and has been steadily decreasing to almost zero ever since.
When my son was born, (trying to remember back 9 years) it wasn’t even second thought, he was circumcised when he was 1 day old. I don’t think that (and I could be wrong) that it’s thought of here as much as other countries. I guess I never really thought much about it. I assumed everyone had their male child done. Guess I have some learning to do, huh? Hmmm