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Nearly one in five adult New Zealanders have been tattooed, and women are more likely to get one than men and young people.
A UMR Research survey of people aged 18 years and over indicated 19 per cent of adults have been tattooed, with the rate rising to 36 per cent among the adults younger than 30.
Overall, 22 per cent of women have been tattooed, compared with 17 per cent of men.
And there was an even bigger split on ethnic lines: almost half (47 per cent) of Maori and Pacific Islanders had been tattooed but only 15 per cent of other ethnicities.
"Polynesians gave the English language the word tattoo which is derived from the Samoan word tatau, so it should be no surprise that Pacific Islanders and Maori were also far more likely to have had tattoos than others," said a director of the research company, Tim Grafton.
Almost one third (32 per cent) of parents with dependent children had a tattoo compared to 13 per cent of the rest of the adult population.
Few had any regrets, with 85 per cent of people with a tattoo saying they did not regret it. Men were slightly more likely to regret having had one than women.
- NZPA
