Massey University distinguished professor and sociologist Paul Spoonley is one of this country's leading researchers into social change.
Last year he stepped aside after six years as pro vice-chancellor of one of Massey's largest faculties, the college of humanities and social sciences, to focus on writing and research. His new book " The New New Zealand: Facing Demographic Disruption", looks at the coming decades and asks the question: Are we ready?
Paul Spoonley sat down with the Asia Media Centre to take a look at Asian immigration, and the implications of the growing Asian diaspora in New Zealand.
- The book suggests In 2023 there will be more Asian New Zealanders than Māori in the country – what impact will that have? It will be a tipping point and especially significant given the colonial history of seeking to keep Asians out of New Zealand, and we will see that 800,000 New Zealanders will be a member of one Asian community or another.
It raises some questions about how the nature of the relationships between Māori and Asian communities is working – and whether there are ways to strengthen these relationships.
And we need to consider our policy framework. How do we recognise and resource ethnic communities in ways that reinforce the bicultural framework of New Zealand? For example, what does our policy on heritage languages look like – without undermining or competing with Te Reo Māori? - Asian ethnic populations in New Zealand are growing faster than other groups – why is that? Asian population growth is a result of natural increase (births minus deaths) and immigration. Asian communities are much younger in age than many other communities and they have more in the child-bearing age – or about to enter this age – so the birth rate remains relatively high.
It is helped by the arrival of young Asians on a study visa or as young families. About 75 percent of Asians are immigrants so the way in which immigration has seen the arrival of younger immigrants helps the fertility rate considerably. - Auckland’s current 25 percent Asian population is now predicted to go out to 35 percent .. how will that change the city? Many of the things that have become more obvious in the last decade – ethnic precincts, the growing proportion of Asians in the school and university systems, the importance of Asian businesses in the Auckland economy, the proportion of the workforce or job seekers who are Asian, the food and the festivals – will become even more obvious.
We anticipate that by 2040, there will be close to 40 percent of the city’s residents who self-identify as Asian in some way. It will become a very “Asian city” in its feel and demography. - Is there a political movement bubbling under for Asian New Zealanders, and how might that emerge? Recent polling shows a continuing strong support for the National Party among Asian New Zealanders, although the percentage increase for ACT is identical to the drop in support for National, and there is a modest drop in support for Judith Collins and a similar increase in support for Jacinda Ardern which suggests an “Ardern effect”.
What is striking is that there are high levels of support amongst Chinese voters for the current government in terms of dealing with Covid (but this does not translate into votes) and almost the same levels of support for assisted dying and opposition to marijuana reform.
Now to answer your question: The outcome of this election is going to be extremely interesting in terms of the make-up of Parliament. On present polling, National would not have a single Chinese MP (nor an Indian or any other Asian) and that might cause some concern.
The high levels of political support for National might not be translated into representatives in Parliament. This, combined with statements about picking candidates for their quality, not their ethnicity, might beg the question of whether there are other ways of seeking political representation for Asian communities. But I have seen little of this to date, so it might be something for the future. - What needs to be done now to plan for increasing migrant diaspora communities in New Zealand? There is still little visibility in terms of understanding the importance of the size and impact of various minority ethnic communities. There is a lot of attention, often mixed in tone, about something like the size and importance of Asian international students, but little acknowledgement of the size of the Chinese or Indian sub-economy within the Auckland city economy for example.
There is an appreciation of the food on offer but little is said about the way in which Asian leisure and sports activities are significantly changing the numbers participating.
Some sports are increasing because of Asian participation (golf, basketball, table tennis, football) while others (rugby, rugby league, cricket) have seen a significant decrease in numbers, especially at school level.
But possibly the greatest gap is the failure to use the knowledge, networks, and experience of these diasporas when it comes to trading back into their countries of origin. - Is there a “Regional Policy Framework” anywhere that we could copy, in an attempt to spread migrant groups out? Canadians do this rather well. The key to it is a partnership between the federal government and provincial governments so that each has certain priorities and each allocates up to half of the points required to migrate to Canada. But this means that provincial governments (local and regional councils in the case of New Zealand) need to identify local priorities, especially in relation to the skills needed in the local economy, and to provide settlement support.
A welcoming approach by local employers and communities goes a long way to helping ensure positive settlement outcomes. There are some examples of the latter working in New Zealand – Ashburton – but not many. - What has been the demographic impact of Covid, and how should we be responding? Covid-19 has brought a halt to both temporary (those on work and study visas) and permanent arrivals, so the very significant flows between parts of Asia, notably India, China and the Philippines, and New Zealand, have effectively stopped unless it involves those departing or New Zealand citizens and permanent residents arriving back.
This will not stop the growing proportion of New Zealanders who self-identify with one Asian community or another, largely as a result of the relatively young median ages of these communities – and the fact that many are in their child-bearing years, or about to enter them.
In the 2018 census, 15 percent of New Zealanders indicated that they were members of one of the Asian communities, and this will grow to become one in every five New Zealanders soon. It will be well over a third of all Aucklanders. Covid will ease this growth for a few years, simply because there will not be as many migrants from Asia. - Why do 60 percent of migrants to New Zealand end up in Auckland? Migrants tend to come from big cities and to gravitate towards big city environments, partly because that is where the jobs are (over half of all new jobs have been in Auckland in recent years and it is a much thicker labour market – with many more opportunities – than anywhere else in New Zealand) and partly because the specialist services and products (such as food) are sometimes only available in Auckland.
In any given migrant group, there will simply be more of them in Auckland than elsewhere, and often more of them in Auckland than the rest of the country combined. This is not true for some groups such as the Filipinos who are spread out around New Zealand. - Should New Zealand begin to look more closely at the age of Asian migrants, to avoid adding to an already swelling over-65 cohort? Migration has contributed about 75 percent of New Zealand’s population growth in recent years and has helped balance the ageing of the population by introducing younger members to the community as they come on a study visa or as prime working-age migrants.
I would not want to overstate the impact on ageing – we are soon going to see 25 percent of all New Zealanders aged over 65 - but it is a critical factor when the workforce is considered, especially as migrants tend to have higher educational (and other) qualifications compared to the existing New Zealand population.
Migrants remain a critical aspect of workforce labour supply, especially in terms of skilled labour. - You anticipate 40 percent of the country will live in Auckland by about 2030 – what impact will that have? The population growth over the next two decades will be focused on the top half of the North Island, and especially on Auckland.
There is a movement out of Auckland, but for every person who leaves, five arrive, so the growth in numbers easily outweighs any net loss to other regions. We need a medium-sized city to get the advantages of size and diversity (economic as well as ethnic) that is essential in a service-based economy – local and global – that characterises the 21st century.
But the concern is that most regions will see population stagnation or decline, compounded by an ageing population. Serious thought needs to be given to how this population imbalance could be addressed. There has been little effort to date.
- New Zealand’s national population will be 20 percent Asian soon. Will that figure continue to increase? Asian communities are much younger than Pakeha and therefore will have higher natural growth (births minus deaths). Their fertility rate is not that high (the number of children born per woman) but there are simply more of them in child-bearing ages, or about to enter these ages, so the number of total births will remain quite high.
Soon, 20 percent of all New Zealanders will self-identify with one of these Asian ethnicities with many more now being born and raised in New Zealand. (At the moment, 75 percent of all Asians are immigrants and have been born in another country).
But the growth after reaching 20 percent will be slower, especially given modest fertility rates and lower rates of net migration gain as a result of Covid-19. - Do you have an ideal national population number for New Zealand? Nope. The rate of growth, the role of net migration in that growth, and the location of the population are the important factors rather than a total number.
- Should immigration slow down until we can get these problems sorted? Between 2013 and 2020, we have seen the highest rates of immigration and net migration gain in our history. And it has been much higher than other OECD countries. In 2019, our net migration gain was 11.4 per 1000 of our population. Australia’s was 6.2 per 1000 people while the USA or the UK were a fraction of this again (around 2 to 3 per 1000). That is extraordinarily high.
In the June 2020 year (the 12 months to the end of June 2020), the net gain was just under 80,000 whereas the normal long-run net annual gain for New Zealand has been about 12,000 per year.
The 2020 figure does not include the 350,000 temporary migrants who were in New Zealand when the country went into lock-down. Covid-19 has allowed a pause (“a cup of tea”) and we should now have a reasoned and evidence-informed debate about the nature and rate of immigration for the 2020s.
I am concerned that this rapidly gets politicised and the evidence is discarded in favour of political slogans.
- Asia Media Centre