New Zealand's Diaspora and Overseas-born Population (WP 04/13)

Abstract#

Many New Zealand-born people migrate overseas, creating a diaspora, and many overseas-born people migrate to New Zealand. Both the diaspora and the overseas-born population in New Zealand may facilitate the international exchange of goods and ideas. Much discussion of international linkages has, however, been limited by a lack of data on numbers of people involved. Based mainly on place-of-birth data from national censuses, this paper provides estimates of the size and structure of New Zealand’s diaspora and overseas-born population, as well as comparisons with selected OECD countries such as Australia. A tentative conclusion is that the potential contribution of New Zealand’s diaspora may have been overestimated, and the contribution of the overseas-born population underestimated.

Acknowledgements#

The authors would like to thank Statistics New Zealand for providing us with their unpublished study of the size of the New Zealand diaspora.  Thank you also to Richard Bedford, Jim Rose, Bob Buckle, participants at a Treasury seminar and to Andrew Binning and Philip Liu for their excellent research assistance.

Disclaimer#

The views, opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Working Paper are strictly those of the authors.  They do not necessarily reflect the views of the New Zealand Treasury.  The Treasury takes no responsibility for any errors or omissions in, or for the correctness of, the information contained in these working papers.  The paper is presented not as policy, but to inform and stimulate wider debate.

1  Introduction#

Many government agencies and social commentators argue that, by linking New Zealand into the rest of the world, migrants can stimulate the exchange of goods and ideas, and hence improve economic performance. Migrants are seen as potential intermediaries, facilitating international flows of information. One of the official motivations for New Zealand’s business visa scheme, for instance, is that “international trade and investment are facilitated through the knowledge of international markets, contacts and languages of business migrants and visitors” (New Zealand Immigration Service 2002). In the same vein, Deutsche Bank’s analysis of the New Zealand economy, prepared for the 2003 Knowledge Wave Conference, suggests “targeted immigration” and “diaspora policy” as ways of increasing New Zealand’s “global connectedness” and economic growth (Deutsche Bank 2003). Recent Treasury research confirms that migrants do in fact boost trade: all else equal, the more migrants New Zealand receives from a particular country, the more New Zealand tends to trade with that country (Bryant, Genç and Law 2004).

Discussions of the contributions of migrants and global connections are often hampered, however, by a lack of information about basic numbers. Estimates of the size of the New Zealand diaspora, for instance, vary by a factor of two.[1] Many people seem to underestimate the size of the “reverse diaspora”—the stock of immigrants in New Zealand. There are also few systematic comparisons between New Zealand’s migration numbers and those of similar countries.

This paper aims to supply some of the missing numbers. It presents some basic data on the size and structure of New Zealand’s diaspora and immigrant population. Virtually all of the data are derived from the “place of birth” question from New Zealand and overseas censuses. The paper provides numerous international comparisons. The conclusion of the paper compares the diaspora and reverse diaspora, and comments briefly on implications.

2  The diaspora#

This section gives estimates of the size and geographical distribution of the New Zealand diaspora. The principal source of data is the “place of birth” question in national censuses. We treat a person as belonging to the New Zealand diaspora if the person was born in New Zealand but is resident in another country at the time of the other country’s census. This means defining a person as a “New Zealander” if, and only if, that person was born in New Zealand. We assemble statistics on the diasporas of eight comparator countries using the same approach.

Some previous research has used essentially the same methods. An unpublished study by Statistics New Zealand, for instance, used overseas data on numbers of resident New Zealanders to estimate the size of the New Zealand diaspora. A report on the Australian diaspora relies on estimates derived from consular activity to calculate numbers of Australians overseas, but uses census data to estimate numbers of New Zealanders overseas (Hugo, Rudd and Harris 2003: Table 2.5). We have, however, obtained data from a much larger number of destination countries than these earlier studies, aided by the increasing tendency for statistical agencies to place census results on their internet sites.

Although our definition captures one important aspect of the everyday concept of “New Zealander”, “Australian”, and so on, it does lead to some anomalies. For instance, it excludes some people who might ordinarily be included, such as those who moved to New Zealand as young children. It also includes people who might ordinarily be excluded, such as those who moved overseas as young children. These somewhat artificial exclusions and inclusions should, to some unknown extent, offset one another. The birthplace definition also has some important technical advantages. First, data on place of birth are readily available, including data from other countries. Second, the meaning of place of birth is clear, so the associated data are likely to be relatively reliable. Third, people have only one place of birth, so there is no danger of double counting.

Unlike the unpublished Statistics New Zealand study, and unlike some estimates of the Irish or Italian diasporas, we make no attempt to include spouses or descendants. Data with which to estimate numbers of spouses and descendants are only available for a few countries, such as Australia. It is also unclear whether spouses and descendants have the same potential as do New Zealand-born themselves to be international intermediaries.

Table 1 shows data on foreign and native populations from the websites of 20 national statistical agencies.[2] In Table 1, as in all tables in this paper, the estimates refer to the “usually resident” population: that is, the estimates try to include local residents temporarily overseas, and exclude overseas residents temporarily in the country. The row for Australia, for instance, shows the number of Australian residents born in Australia, Canada, Korea, and the other six countries, as recorded in Australia’s 2001 Census. Dashes indicate no data available, which, since statistical agencies generally report the major migration sources first, implies that the number of immigrants was small.

^a1991 ^b1999 ^c1995 ^d2000 ^eCitizenship rather than birth

Note – Dashes indicate no data available.

Sources – See Appendix Table 1.

The rows for Germany, Italy, Japan, and Thailand are based on data for citizenship rather than birthplace. It seems unlikely that this makes much difference to the results.[3]

Reading down the columns of Table 1 gives, for each country, the international distribution of people born in that country. The “total” row at the bottom of the table shows the number of people born in the country, including both those inside and outside the country. The totals, and the sub-totals for people outside their country of birth, are all underestimates, because we have been unable to obtain data on immigrants for all countries. We suspect that, for New Zealand, the degree of underestimation is relatively small. All the major countries not included in Table 1 are non-English-speaking. For almost all the non-English-speaking countries shown in Table 1, the number of resident New Zealanders is fairly low. There are, for instance, only 890 New Zealanders reported as living in France, only 234 in Italy, and only 88 in Finland. It seems likely that the numbers of New Zealanders living in countries not included in Table 1 runs to thousands rather than tens of thousands.

Table 1 shows that there were something in excess of 460,000 New Zealand-born living outside New Zealand in 2001. Of these, almost 360,000 were living in Australia. This represents about 11% of all New Zealand-born, and 77% of the total New Zealand-born population living outside New Zealand. The number of New Zealanders in other countries is much smaller than is often assumed. Expatriates in the United Kingdom often claim that London is New Zealand’s third or fourth largest city. As Table 1 shows, however, the number of New Zealand-born residents in the whole of the United Kingdom in 2001 was less than 60,000.[4] The New Zealand-born populations in the United States and Canada are also not particularly large, and we were able to identify only three non-English-speaking countries with New Zealand-born populations of more than 1,000.

The estimate of something over 460,000 New Zealanders living overseas is consistent with the fact that New Zealand lost 484,000 citizens abroad over the period 1954-2001 (Bushnell and Choy 2001: 4). The two measures would not, in general be equal, since some New Zealand citizens are not born in New Zealand, and since the net loss measure does not take account of deaths. The number 460,000 is, however, substantially smaller than the figure of one million that is often cited as the size of the New Zealand diaspora. Some of the difference may be attributed to definitions: the larger estimates tend to include children and spouses of New Zealanders. The difference does, however, illustrate the danger of generalising from anecdotes and from impressions gained on the London Underground.

Source – Calculated from data in Table 1.

Table 2 summarises the data shown in Table 1. The second row of the table gives the number of people living outside their country of birth as a percentage of the “total” population shown at the bottom of Table 1. Although the percentage of New Zealanders outside their country of birth is lower than the percentage of Irish, it is still substantially higher than for other countries in the table. It is several times higher than the percentages for Australia and Canada, even though commentators in both these countries express concerns about losing citizens overseas. Most of the countries shown in Tables 1 and 2 probably have larger numbers of people living overseas than is typical for wealthy countries, so New Zealand is likely to look even more unusual compared with the OECD average.

As noted already, however, most of New Zealand’s large diaspora is located in one country, Australia. Some of the comparator countries’ diasporas are also heavily concentrated in a big country close to home. Sixty-six percent of Irish-born based outside Ireland live in the United Kingdom, for instance, and 83% of Canadian-born based outside Canada live in the United States. The bottom row of Table 2 shows figures for each country’s diaspora, once the biggest destination for that diaspora (ie, Australia for New Zealand, the UK for Ireland) is excluded. This might be called the “far-flung diaspora”. On this measure, New Zealand no longer appears particularly unusual. Compared to the country’s total population, New Zealand’s far-flung diaspora is considerably larger than that of Australia, Canada, Korea, and the United States, but is approximately equal to that of Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, and is considerably smaller than that of Ireland.

Source – Calculated from data in Table 1.

Table 3 provides further data on geographical concentration. New Zealand’s diaspora is one of the most geographically concentrated of the nine countries chosen. For instance, 95% of the identified New Zealand diaspora lives in just five countries. For Australia, the equivalent figure is 78%, and for Italy and the Netherlands it is 60%.

3  The reverse diaspora#

People born in New Zealand migrate to live elsewhere, but people born elsewhere also migrate to live in New Zealand: this is New Zealand’s “reverse diaspora”. Table 4 presents some statistics on trends in the reverse diaspora, based on the reported birth places of New Zealand’s usually resident population at the time of the 1981 and 2001 censuses. Between 1981 and 2001, numbers increased for all birthplaces, except for the United Kingdom. The fastest increases occurred for Africa and Asia. The rise in migration from Africa and Asia reflected the changes in New Zealand’s immigration policies during the 1980s and early 1990s. Preferences for migrants from “traditional” sources were ended and application decisions were based entirely on the personal characteristics of the migrants, such as age and human capital (Lidgard, Bedford and Goodwin 1998, OECD 2003).

^aExcluding the United Kingdom ^bAssumes that the ratio of New Zealand-born to foreign-born among respondents who do not specify a birthplace equals the ratio among respondents who do specify a birthplace

Source – Calculated from unpublished Census tabulations from Statistics New Zealand

The bottom row of Table 4 shows estimates of total numbers and percentages of foreign-born. To calculate these estimates, we assumed that respondents whose birthplace was unspecified or undefined had the same probability of being foreign-born as respondents who did have a clear birthplace. Although this is a standard assumption, we suspect that respondents with unspecified birthplaces were in fact disproportionately likely to be foreign-born, since foreign-born people may have been more likely to give answers that census coders could not interpret. If this suspicion is correct, then the actual number of foreign born in 2001 may have been slightly higher than the 19.4% suggested in Table 4.

Table 5 compares the percentage of foreign-born in New Zealand with percentages in other countries. Wherever possible, “unspecified” birthplaces are treated in the same way as they are for New Zealand.[5] Following standard practice we have had to use data on citizenship rather than birthplace for some countries. The two measures can diverse substantially: some countries, for instance, withhold citizenship from large numbers of locally-born children whose parents are foreign nationals (Coleman 2003: 310-314). The estimates for New Zealand are sufficiently large, however, that it can be safely concluded that the proportion of foreign-born in New Zealand is high by international standards. Though lower than Australia, it is substantially higher than in the United States, for instance, and over twice as high as in the United Kingdom.

^aForeign citizenship rather than foreign birth ^bRefers to 2002

Sources – See Appendix Table 1.

Table 6 shows the top 30 sources of migrants to New Zealand in 2001. The United Kingdom remains the largest source, with Australia a distant second. The remaining countries are widely scattered, including some from Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America.

Source – Calculated from unpublished Census tabulations from Statistics New Zealand

How does the diversity of New Zealand’s migrant population compare with that of other countries? Table 7 shows some concentration measures for New Zealand, and for six countries that publish the necessary data. New Zealand’s migrant population is more concentrated than the other six, with the exception of Ireland. The difference is fairly muted, however, for the biggest 10, 20, or 50 sources. New Zealand’s migrant population appears to be only slightly less diverse than that of the few countries for which data are available.

Note – For the purposes of this table, a “migrant” is a person who was born outside his or her present country of residence.

Source – See Appendix Table 1

To what extent has the rise in numbers of migrants in New Zealand lead to a rise in the number of migrant communities? Table 8 shows changes in the number of countries from which New Zealand has received a given number of migrants, where a “migrant” is defined as a person who was born outside New Zealand. The table uses four minimum sizes for communities. For all four minimum sizes, there has been a substantial increase in the number of migrant communities. There were, for instance, only 5 communities of 10,000 or more in 1981, but there were 16 in 2001.[6]

Note – For the purposes of this table, a “migrant” is a person who was born outside New Zealand

Source – Calculated from unpublished Census tabulations from Statistics New Zealand

- Numbers of migrant communities, New Zealand and selected countries, 2001

Note – For the purposes of this table, a “migrant” is a person who was born outside his or her present country

Source – See Appendix Table 1

Source – OECD Labour Market Data online database.

Table 9 compares the number of migrant communities in New Zealand with numbers in six other countries for which the necessary data were available, and Table 10 compares New Zealand’s population with that of the same six countries. Together the tables suggest that New Zealand has fewer migrant communities than the OECD norm, but more than might be expected for a country with such a small population.

4  Discussion#

In 2001, the New Zealand diaspora—defined as people born in New Zealand but resident overseas—numbered something over 460,000. This was about 14% of the international total of New Zealand-born. Relative to total population, New Zealand’s diaspora is almost a third smaller than that of Ireland, but is bigger than that of Australia, Canada, Korea, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Three quarters of the New Zealand diaspora is, however, located in Australia, and almost all of the remainder is concentrated in a few English-speaking countries.

In 2001, New Zealand’s “reverse diaspora”—people born overseas but resident in New Zealand—numbered about 727,000. This was about 19% of New Zealand’s total resident population. Like the diaspora, New Zealand’s reverse diaspora is relatively large. It is a somewhat smaller proportion of resident population than that of Australia, but larger, for instance, than that of the United Kingdom or United States. New Zealand’s reverse diaspora does not show the same degree of geographical concentration as does its diaspora.

These basic population numbers are only one part, though an essential part, of the information required to satisfactorily understand how migration links New Zealand to the rest of the world. Information is also needed, for instance, on lengths of stay, and on age, occupation, income, and education. Such information is certainly available for the reverse diaspora. It can also, in principle, be obtained for all members of the diaspora residing in countries that include questions on birthplace or nationality in their censuses or registration systems.

Pending more detailed information, the basic population data do suggest that the potential contribution of the diaspora may occasionally have been overestimated. While expatriate networks can draw on overseas New Zealanders’ contacts and skills, and hence link New Zealand to international markets and international science, it is nevertheless important to bear in mind that the diaspora is smaller and closer to home than is often realised. In particular, the number of New Zealanders living outside the English-speaking world is probably under 20,000.[7] This is perhaps not surprising given that only 10% of New Zealand-born adults can speak more than one language.[8]

In contrast, potential benefits from the reverse diaspora may have been underestimated. Not only is the reverse diaspora large by international standards, but it can link New Zealand to a strikingly wide range of countries, both English-speaking and non-English-speaking.

References#

Bryant, John, Murat Genç and David Law (2004) "Trade and migration to New Zealand." Wellington, New Zealand Treasury, Working Paper No 04/18.

Bushnell, Peter and Wai Kin Choy (2001) "'go west, young man, go west!'?" Wellington, New Zealand Treasury, Working Paper No 01/7. http://www.treasury.govt.nz/publications/research-policy/wp/2001/01-07>

Coleman, David A. (2003) "Two-and-a-half cheers: A review essay on the international migration report 2003." Population and Development Review 29(2): 305-318.

Deutsche Bank (2003) "The New Zealand economy and the growth debate." Discussion paper for the Knowledge Wave conference, 18-21 February, Auckland. http://www.knowledgewave.org.nz/forum_2003/background_reading/Knowledgewave2003.pdf>

Hugo, Graeme, Dianne Rudd and Kevin Harris (2003) "Australia's diaspora: Its size, nature and policy implications." Melbourne, Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA), Information Paper No 80.

Lidgard, Jacqueline, Richard D Bedford and Joanne E Goodwin (1998) "International migration from northeast asia and population change in New Zealand, 1986 to 1996." Hamilton, University of Waikato, Population Studies Centre, Discussion Paper No 26.

New Zealand Immigration Service (2002) "Business immigration: The evaluation of the 1999 business immigration policy." Wellington, Department of Labour, Immigration Research Programme. http://www.dol.govt.nz/publication-view.asp?ID=163>

OECD (2003) "OECD economic surveys: New Zealand." Paris, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Appendix#