Responding to the urbanisation of Melanesia’s populations: a critical 21st century challenge

Rowan Callick’s (1993) deliberately provocative ‘doomsday scenario’ for an increasingly impoverished and marginalised Pacific by 2010 was primarily designed to challenge a prevailing tendency at the time towards complacency about medium-term prospects for a region where the great majority of the population remained ruralresident

Migrants in their family contexts: Application of a methodology

The composition of immigrant families is a topic which has attracted considerable public and political attention in recent years. In the late 1980s concern was expressed over the size of some households of Pacific Island peoples in New Zealand. In the 1990s a more persistent concern has been with the incidence of what have been called ‘astronaut’ families – families where one of the partners is persistently absent overseas. The ‘astronaut’ family phenomenon has been most commonly associated with Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan. This report uses a novel methodology to examine the incidence of ‘astronaut’ families in New Zealand at the time of the 1991 and 1996 censuses. The methodology is described in some detail in the first section, and it is hoped that the careful attention to the procedures used to examine migrants, who have been identified in the census, in their family contexts will stimulate further research in this area. The second part of the report presents the findings of an initial exploration of 1991 and 1996 census data using the methodology outlined in the first section. It is clear from results of this inquiry that the ‘astronaut’ family phenomenon is well established amongst some components of New Zealand’s Asian community. However, it is not as widespread as media comment in 1995 and 1996, before the 1996 election, suggested. It is important to develop ways of assessing characteristics of immigrant family structures in order to counter unsubstantiated assertions which promote negative stereotypes of immigrant communities. This research, which builds on a project supported by the Marsden Fund in 1997, suggest one fruitful avenue for making more extensive use of census data on immigrants in New Zealand to provide more objective assessment of “migrants in social context”

International migration in a sea of islands: Challenges and opportunities for insular Pacific spaces

Our contribution to the International Conference “Connecting Worlds: Emigration, Immigration and Development in Insular Spaces”, held in the Azores between 28 and 30 May 2008, examines contemporary mobility of Pacific peoples in a transnational context with reference to processes of out-migration, return, re-migration and the complex systems of circular mobility between island countries as well as to and from countries on the Pacific rim. There are some significant differences between parts of the Pacific region in terms of the access their peoples have to work and residence opportunities outside their island countries. These are reviewed with reference to some major challenges for development in the region: rapid growth of youthful populations; high levels of unemployment; limited markets for local produce; unsustainable levels of extraction of timber, fish and mineral resources; changing climates; and unstable governance systems in some countries

Immigration futures: New Zealand in a global context

At no other time in the past century has there been such focused and intense global interest in international migration. Never before has there been such interest, internationally, in how Australia, Canada and New Zealand manage their international migration. These countries have become models for governments elsewhere who are seeking to develop policy that has a more direct impact on the quality of the population flows into their countries. New Zealand is unusual by OECD standards in that it has a high level of emigration of citizens at the same time that it has a very high per capita rate of immigration. New Zealand’s contemporary migration flows are examined briefly and it is demonstrated that the system is not nearly as dominated by migration from countries in northeast Asia as it was a decade ago. A more flexible approach to the attainment of permits to reside in a country is being adopted in most countries now. The prospective migrants take the opportunity to assess employment opportunities and the quality of life in a prospective new home (perhaps not their only home either), while working or studying on temporary permits and gaining the sort of local experience that is valued in the points-based immigrant selection systems. The paper concludes with a brief analysis of data relating to transition to residence in New Zealand

Missing men and unacknowledged women: Explaining gender disparities in New Zealand’s prime adult age groups 1986 – 2006

Questions concerning the widening disparity in numbers of males and females in the prime working age groups in New Zealand’s population have attracted attention from researchers and the media in recent years. This paper reviews some of the findings from research for a FRST-funded programme that has been investigating several inequalities based on gender and ethnicity in New Zealand’s population. The analysis here complements and extends that in our paper published in the New Zealand Population Review in May 2006. Our main finding is that a complex combination of issues related to the way our stock (census) and flow (arrival/departure) data are used to compile population estimates (the base for population projections), have contributed to exaggerating apparent gender disparities in the 20-49 year age groups at successive censuses. There is no single explanation for this, and the main new finding from our analysis is that gender disparities in the prime adult age groups in New Zealand’s population are as much a function of ‘unacknowledged women’ as of ‘missing men’

Changing sex ratios in New Zealand: Real change or a statistical problem?

In New Zealand, in all age groups under 20, and in key working age groups, historically there have been more men than women. Life table data suggest that, without migration, the number of males should remain greater than the number of females until around the age of 60 years. However, census data indicate that the number of New Zealand women residents relative to men in the broad 20-49 age group has been increasing since the 1980s. Given that birth ratios for New Zealand residents favour boys in common with international experience, the imbalance of women over men in the 20-49 age group has to come from four possible sources: 1) differential mortality; 2) more New Zealand born men leaving New Zealand; 3) a higher number of female immigrants; or 4) that statistical collections are undercounting men, and this undercounting has become progressively greater over the past 20 years. In this paper we focus on undercount and, through this investigation, raise some doubts about the validity of either a serious ‘man drought’ or a major 'surplus of women' in the population

International migration in New Zealand: Context, components and policy issues

This paper explores Aotearoa/New Zealand’s distinctive heritage as both a ‘traditional land of immigration’ as well as a ‘country of emigration’, with particular reference to contemporary policy issues and research initiatives. An underlying theme of the argument is the need for an approach which takes account of all types of movement into and out of the country when researching immigration, both as a process and as a policy domain

Rural trajectories: Diversification and farm-community linkages in Whakatane District, 1999-2003

In New Zealand and elsewhere the interdependence of development in farming and the broader rural community can no longer be taken for granted. Five years ago we conducted a comparative analysis of the interrelated dynamics of change in agriculture and rural communities in the Central North Island. The observed trends from this research suggested that: (i) long and short cycles of change affecting the rural sector are promoting greater diversity in agriculture-community relations; (ii) adjustment processes are ongoing; and (iii) current evidence does not point unambiguously to either the decoupling or re-linking of agriculture and the broader rural community. This paper explores further the ambiguity encountered in the earlier research through a follow-up case study grounded in Whakatane District. The key finding is that as a result of individual effort and the will to diversify, the rural economy of Whakatane District is buoyant and farming remains the major economic activity. However, despite the apparent persistence of strong and pervasive agriculture-community linkages, the district remains vulnerable to forces embedded in short and long cycles of change. In terms of short-cycle change, the pressure on dairy farming from price fluctuation and the increasing attractiveness of conversion to horticulture is affecting the agricultural side of the equation, while the proliferation of lifestyle blocks is notable on the community side. In terms of long-cycle change, the influence of a renaissance of Maori rural living is beginning to be felt on the community side, while the effect of climate change and associated weather extremes is beginning to impact on agriculture

Perspectives on international migration, urban social transformation and the research/policy interface

This paper examines some characteristics of social transformation in cities on the Pacific rim, especially Los Angeles, Vancouver, Sydney and Auckland. At the beginning of the new millennium, these cities are all experiencing massive social changes associated with the effects of several decades of extensive immigration, substantial restructuring of both the economy and welfare systems and, in some cases, extensive emigration of highly skilled young professionals responding to an intensely competitive market for their skills

Maori internal and international migration at the turn of the century: An Australasian perspective

At the beginning of the twenty-first century there were two major national clusters of Maori: New Zealand, the ancestral home for Maori, and Australia, home to a much smaller Maori population from the early years of the nineteenth century. In the 2001 censuses of New Zealand and Australia, the usually resident Maori populations were, respectively, 526,281 (ethnic group classification) and 72,956 (ancestry classification). In this paper we examine four dimensions of Maori population movement between 1996 and 2001 using the census data from New Zealand and Australia: 1) internal migration between rural and urban areas in New Zealand; 2) internal migration between rural and urban areas in Australia; 3) migration into New Zealand of Maori resident overseas in 1996; 4) migration into Australia of Maori resident overseas in 1996. There has never been a comprehensive assessment of Maori migration in an Australasian context before, but in the light of developments in population exchanges between New Zealand and Australia this sort of analysis is critical if one wishes to understand contemporary Maori population dynamics