A migration outflow in the year to June helped contribute to New Zealand's slowest population growth rate since the late 1980s, while the 24,100 natural increase in the population was the lowest since World War II.
Stats NZ said the overall population (provisionally) increased just 0.2% to 5.124 million in the June 2022 year, with a net migration loss of 11,500 meaning that there was an overall increase in the population of just 12,700.
Population decline actually occurred in five regions – Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, West Coast, and Southland, while many other of New Zealand’s 16 regions experienced lower population growth in the June 2022 year than in 2021.
“While two-thirds of regions experienced population growth in the past year, for most regions this growth was lower than in 2021,” population estimates and projections acting manager Rebekah Hennessey said.
Auckland’s population continued to decline in the June 2022 year, after falling for the first time in June 2021, Hennessey said.
In the June 2022 year, Auckland’s population declined by 0.5%, slightly less than the decline in 2021 of 0.6%.
“While people leaving the bigger cities such as Auckland is not new, internal migration losses have historically been offset by international migration gains,” Hennessey said.
“With international migration losses now occurring, Auckland had an overall population loss of 8,900 people in the June 2022 year.”
Nationally, annual population growth has slowed over the last two years, dropping from 2.2% in the June 2020 year, to 0.4% in the June 2021 year, and now 0.2% in the June 2022 year.
“Slowing regional growth reflects what is happening nationally, particularly annual net migration loss, partly due to the impact of Covid-19 on international migration,” Hennessey said.
“This net migration loss was combined with the lowest natural increase since World War II.”
Auckland had a provisional net loss of 15,000 people through internal migration (people moving between Auckland and other parts of New Zealand). This comes after net losses of 11,300 and 15,400 people in the previous two years. It continues a trend of net flows out of Auckland that began in the late 1990s.
Internal migration was the main driver of population change in 12 of the country's 16 regions, while natural increase was the main driver in the other four. No regions had international migration as the main driver of population change in the June 2022 year.
Two regions – West Coast and Marlborough – experienced natural decrease (more deaths than births) in the June 2022 year. These regions have more older people, with 23% of their population aged 65 years and over. New Zealand overall had 16% of its population aged 65 years and over at 30 June 2022.
107 Comments
Yes people running away from high house prices and not having kids.
Someone should do a proper study on why our birth rate is in decline. (it's one of those things that we intuitively know but won't be taken seriously until we have hard stats - because we can cover it up with migration)
Male fertility rates around the world are also plummeting.
"Numerous studies have found that, on average, male sperm counts around the world have more than halved in the past 50 years and are still falling at a rate of two per cent every year.
Reasons for this decline range from our increasingly stressful lifestyles, poor diet and environmental factors."
Darrel Bricker and John Ibbitson co-authors of, "Empty Planet have done some good research on this topic.
They actually visit many countries and talk to the women about what is happening. There are some interesting discoveries, apart from the ones you may already know, like for example, how their phones are enabling them to see the freedom and opportunities that other women are having in other parts of the world.
Here's a good video on Youtube about their work.
"The World's Shrinking Population"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYZPTaV-RcQ&list=PLPnEVd8-sWFqlFXD_RpXW…
For the last few decades you kept hearing "People shouldn't have kids till they can afford them", so they didn't. Next minute "Why aren't people having children?"
OK seriously, though that is true as well, women who have a choice, have control of their own lives and fertility, choose to have fewer births, start later and some skip the whole process altogether. It has little to do with money, it has everything to do with choice, not all women were born hanging out to have a tribe of children, though a few will.
This is how we can bring the human race's numbers down to more of a balance - with everything, including other species that have as much claim to this planet as we do. Maybe one day we will even come to understand we do not own it.
Simple question should be: If money and space was no issue, would you have more children or fewer?
I suspect we are creating this outcome ourselves with expensive, small housing and actually baking some of the birth rate reductions into the system, whereas the common refrain is that well-educated women don't want to have kids, or more than two, or whatever.
Have... have we actually asked them whether that's true?
They are all considerations, but it's also influenced by age. By the time we settled down and had a couple of kids my wife was 40 and said that's it (and fair enough).
Getting a house probably delayed us a few years, but so did travelling around and going to uni, getting jobs etc.
I guess fertility horizon isn't compatible with the long list of things that people feel they need to do first.
Agree - we had a baby boom post WW2 as the greatest generation created, by winning the war, conditions of peace and stability. We're currently going through the equivalent of the 1920's-early 1940's where we have financial, geopolitical, and social instability. These aren't the conditions to have children when you don't know if WW3 is going to start tomorrow, nor whether taking on $500,000 debt with rising interest rates is a good idea to own a safe/stable place to raise a family.
The 4th Turning is great read for anyone who wants to explore these issues in more detail using the Straus/Howe generation model.
"These aren't the conditions to have children when you don't know if WW3 is going to start tomorrow, nor whether taking on $500,000 debt with rising interest rates is a good idea to own a safe/stable place to raise a family."
Good thing I don't have a mortgage on my home, an investment property and a second kid on the way!
Whilst I agree with the reasoning to a certain extent, it doesn't take into account the religious overhang, societal norms, women's lack of body autonomy, or even unconscious fears as a result of population losses from the war.
My parents are boomers born at the end of the 40's. My mother the middle of 13 children and my father the youngest of 9.
There was no contraception back then and the religious overhang forbade it anyway. It was relatively normal to have large families and woman didn't really have the right to say no when their husband wanted sex. Was there also an unconscious requirement to replace lost lives, breed the next generation of workers, children to take over the family farm etc?
Move forward to the 70's when my parents had children and many things had changed via education, women's rights, urbanisation, contraception, economic conditions and possibly more conscious choices around having children.
Move forward to now and many are impeded by economic conditions, demands and expectations. Many are also more selfish as raising children requires many sacrifices to ones lifestyle.
Yes I found it an excellent model and it makes understanding the motivations of each generation easier to comprehend. Also each generations fears and insecurities. I can see it within my work colleagues and family as well.
And bigger picture it makes the geopolitical issues we are seeing far more predictable.
Ray Dalio's 'Changing World Order' compliments 'The 4th Turning' quite well. The two theories are quite well aligned and it shows how different generations are shaped as a result of when they were born relative to a long debt cycle starting and finishing - this determines many things including how you think the financial system works - and how prone you might be to confirmation/recency bias - a danger thing if you have only experienced one way of viewing the world for your entire life (this represents boomers and to a certain extent, Gen X).
The birth rate in New Zealand in 2020 was 1.61 births per woman (https://www.stats.govt.nz/news/new-zealands-birth-rate-lowest-on-record…) I think 2.1 is replacement (some children die). I know COVID had an effect but it been below 2 for a while. This is happening in all first world countries. We are not seeing a decline in population yet because old people from the population boom are not dying in significant numbers yet. Women are having children later, which means they are less futile and don't have the time to bring up as many children, or choosing not to have any. Men are less futile too but I think the decline in births mainly a decision, it seems the richer you are the less likely to have children. If you are rich children are a financial burden, if you are poor the a financial benefit, child support in rich countries, workers in poor.
I think this has been studied.
"We are not seeing a decline in population yet because old people from the population boom are not dying in significant numbers yet"
Not yet, but its happening. I know of quite a few in their 60s - 70's who departed for the afterlife in recent years, and the number of funerals for that age bracket appears to be increasing in quantity not decreasing.
I'm going to more funerals, than sending congratulation messages to people for having children in recent years.
Big demographic changes are taking place as the boomer generation enter old age. Half of the boomer generation will die or be deceased in the next decade (or so, approximately....) based upon life expectancy for that generation.
And young people aren't having kids, and one of the big reasons if they don't think they can afford to have them. Ironically, the generation not having children are the children of boomers who on odds, will have either lost one of both of their boomer parents now or will do so in the very near future.
To settle and having children people need stability and security, with hope of future prosperity. And my experience is that one generation has decided that it wants to exploit more benefits for itself than it creates for the generations that follow it. And oddly they are unaware that they are even doing it. Despite the depression and anxiety is it/has caused younger generations, who as a result don't feel like they have the conditions around them that would be suitable to procreate.
Good point - agree. I think GV mentioned this yesterday about education/financially independent women aren't having children but the uneducated and financial dependent people are.
Not sure what the politically correct solution would be for this, if there is one at all. Morally/ethically it is a tricky subject.
Perhaps we need to be less dependent upon welfare - or the expectation of welfare for everyone.
i.e. personal choices come with responsibility - which appears to be at odds with modern culture where nobody appears to think that they are responsible for any of their own choices/behaviours/actions.
Our planning systems are good at producing small, expensive housing. It's no wonder that people's family planning is starting to reflect that. If I need two million dollars for a four bedroom, guess how many kids I'm not having.
But for everyone who makes a sensible financial demographic decision around family size, there's three or four who just don't care because someone else is picking up the tab.
If your society makes it prohibitively expensive to have families in the first place, educated women simply get to make the choice that house prices and living cost pressures let them make. They aren't any freer on a self-determinism basis than when they were expected to stay home and raise kids because that was women's work. But that's the beauty of NZ's flavour of capitalism. It makes you feel like you've got a lot more choices than you actually do.
The other part of the recipe is contraception. Females were already working in greater numbers from WW2, but the birth rate didn't half in no time until the pill got into the mix. Motivation, plus ability to choose = little families. Yet another thing that transformed the world in the 1960s.
After one of the highest population growth rates in the OECD in the past decade, mainly through very high immigration, and all the stresses that has brought to Auckland in particular, I think this decline, even if temporary, is welcome. The real estate/construction sector won't think so, nor will those vested interests who say GDP growth (not per capita) is all that matters.
Both up and downsides, for sure.
The lack of staff in hospo is really starting to grate me, as a customer. I am sure it’s even more grating for the business owners.
But our housing, infrastructure and social services have been pushed to breaking point, so welcome relief on those fronts.
Lol - we will just replace the lack of New Zealand born children with foreigners who want to live here from third world countries and in the process become more third world ourselves. And this isn't being xenophobic towards any nation or culture, simply a reflection of how the economic model has been built.
We need more tax take from younger working age people to be able to afford the boomer generation superannuation.
You do not need more tax take from the young to pay for superannuation.
1. Change the qualification date from 65 to 70 and that problem is solved.
2. Reduce the superannuation - NZ does have a generous pension compared to many other developed countries.
3. Superannuation for citizens only not permanent residents
4. Use actuarial science to demand suitable pre-payment for superannuation from immigrants - this would be zero for a young immigrant but substantial for an elderly immigrant.
Well it is partially means tested - I would get more if my wife wasn't working and just like all income it is means tested by your tax band.
But if you mean no super if you have been either careful or lucky enough to have savings then you are wrong. You may point out that I have houses in my name [ live in one and get rent from another] so therefore do not need as much superannuation as my neighbour you would be astonished how fast the properties will be transferred to family members.
Lawyers and accountants will be smiling at your suggestion.
It's called deprivation of assets and there are already government operated systems that take it into account - https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/life-stages/health-older-people/lon….
Absolutely that is how the Federal Government Aged Pension is managed over here in Australia. It is subject to an asset test or an income test which is determined by Centrelink, whichever is the greater. Below a set asset or income test threshold, either the individual or a couple receive a full pension, and then it works on a sliding scale of part pensions, before maximum asset or income thresholds are passed. Once you pass the maximum asset threshold you receive no pension at all and no assistance with healthcare costs or any subsidies to reduce the cost of medicines on the pharmaceutical benefits scheme. Owner occupier homes are exempted from both tests and non home owners receive a greater aged pension to help them ameliorate the higher costs of still having to pay rent in older age. As you draw down on your superannuation (KiwiSaver equivalent schemes) and reduce your balances, eventually over time you drop below the thresholds and become eligible for a part aged pension and possibly over the decades a full aged pension, and become gradually eligible for all those golden federal and state health care cards.
If you have any investment properties that yield rental income you will also be assessed on these in the income test. There is a moratorium that is retrospective that does not allow you to sign over investment properties or gift money from your private super funds to family members several years prior to reaching pension age. Centrelink goes back several years and checks. This is to stop wealth transfer from Superfunds from retirees to their children and allow the parents to falsely claim a pension they are not entitled to. It is all tied to Australian Tax office records which are extensive now, eg all dividends paid to shareholders are directly by law reported to the ATO now, no one is trusted to self declare their dividend income. If you have assets in family trusts in self managed super funds these are also subject to regulatory declaration to the ATO. Shares, annuities, Superfund balances , holiday homes, investment properties, even the boat, caravan, and car(s) and household contents are subject to asset test. Furthermore, anyone born after Jan 1st 1957 cannot receive an aged pension in Australia until they turn 67 and then as stated above application for an aged pension is subject to testing by Centrelink.
The average age of retirement in Australia currently sits at 62 and a half years old. So a significant number of retirees are fully self supporting both before pension eligibility age and oftentimes for many years (sometimes decades) after pension age. NZ will eventually transition to a means tested aged pension system and raise the age of eligibility, probably using a similar model to that of Australia. No one thought it would happen here either, but the transition was bought in over a ten to fifteen year period, as peoples super funds grew under the compulsory super contribution scheme in Australia.
Do we need more people to afford the boomer generation though? That sounds a lot like a Ponzi scheme, and we all should know how those end. But what happens to money paid out in Super? Does it magically disappear? Or is it circulated among younger generations who provide older generations with services? And from there, magically around the rest of the community? I guess it just disappears, as we have been trained to believe.
Of course Govt in its generosity immediately claws back a chunk through paye. Should you choose to actually spend the super windfall, another 15% is refunded back for all the long suffering taxpayers that don't like paying retirees. So we immediately return 30%. Where does the 70% go? Rates, insurance healthcare, food etc? Seriously, you believe this money disappears?
The facts and figures outlined in the article should come as no suprise.
Young kiwis have been systematically priced out of having kids of their own, systematically priced out of living in anything more than dormitory cubicles, and the communities that many grew up in are now totally unrecognisable after unfettered mass immigration was foisted upon them.
Auckland has become a very much less desirable place over the past few decades. Those that can, are fleeing, in search of opportunity or somewhere that still feels like home.
Has Auckland really become less desirable? I remember 20 years ago the last train was at 6pm, no weekend services, the central city was fully covered in tarmac and had very little going for it, buses were infrequent, no hop card, no vector arena, Eden park was terrible, and plenty more things that are much better now.
Killing the goose that laid the golden eggs comes to mind on so many issues in recent times.
People thinking they can take more than they need in order to enrich themselves in the short term, but destroy the thing that had the value in the first place in doing so.
This socioeconomic disaster has coincided with successive governments doubling down on the neoliberal experiment. Both major parties are guilty of econ-speak, defending social failures with meaningless macroeconomic indicators such as unemployment and GDP growth.
Even this virtue-signaling government often addresses the people of NZ as "labour supply" and "consumers".
Yes it has become so very short sighted.
A real lack of moral integrity and wisdom is present in leadership across institutions.
Nobody willing to say no or do anything radical that might make the future better even if it is politically unpopular in the short term.
Traffic 20 years ago was a bit better, but then again not every household had 4 cars like they seem to now. I can remember driving up to wenderholm on the weekends and getting stuck in terrible traffic 20 years ago.
I find the beaches pretty quiet, nothing like most other countries.
yes stuff is less accessible by car, that would have happened regardless of population growth just due to the growing numbers of cars per capita. But it is far more accessible by public transport and the CRL will be a big leap forward.
And I can remember traffic out at Long Bay when I was a kid in the late 80s and 1990s. It happened, but generally only at certain places.
But as a rule now, unless you're first to the coast in summer on almost any beach from Stanmore Bay to Maraetai, then you aren't getting a spot. We found a better use of our summer days in our 20s was to by-pass the Auckland beaches altogether and head to a Coromandel spot for a dip. Takeaways in Tairua at 4pm and then a bent sprint through the back-roads back to Auckland.
Hmmmmmm
I lived on Albert Street from 1994-1996, there wasn’t a big inner city resident population but I recall it being pretty vibrant. There was a decent number of cafes, restaurants, bars and clubs (especially in the High Street area). It certainly wasn’t filled with homeless people, convenience stores, and chain cafes, nor ruined by never ending road works.
No Vector Arena? But there were some cool old warehouses, since demolished, that held some pretty cool concerts (eg. Massive Attack).
Give me the central Auckland of the mid 1990s any day of the week.
Actually, once women had the choice via birth control, the birth rate started dropping and that was long before rapidly rising house prices.
Truth of the matter is, not all women just want to churn out kids most of their adult life because they can't prevent it. It is just about 100% due to choice and the ability to act on that choice. Show me all the rich families with copious numbers of children
Contraception came in a long time before the dropping of the birthrate. The key is more kids means less parental lifestyle and lifestyle expectations are way different to when the birthrate was higher. I was born the late sixties along with 3 siblings. We lived, a family of 6, in a 3 bedroom 90sqm house with a living room the size of a bedroom. We had an extremely limited lifestyle compared to now. No overseas holidays, practically no out of town holidays.
To be fair there are a lot of wealthy people that have large families because it doesn't impinge their lifestyle. It tends to be the middle classes that limit families due to money.
I am old enough to remember when NZs population was only two and a half million. To my mind it was a far more enjoyable country back then with no traffic congestion and an unspoiled environment.
Just increasing our population for the sake of economic growth without taking into account our quality of life seems a rather futile exercise.
NZ is a great place to retire and have peace and quiet away from the busy world. However, being a young adult seeking for excitement and jobs/wealth/money, it really doesn't offer much in that aspect.
The world is quite a big place outside of NZ. Many have realized that life is too short to always stay idle, and that you can learn/experience/gain new things outside of NZ. Earning potential is much higher in many other places as well as richer life experiences.
NZ will require mass amounts of immigration to cover this shortfall. Unfortunately they won't be able to attract the big investors or "big money". Most of the people do come are those who want to flee their existing country in search for a better, steadier, and peaceful life for themselves and their families.
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You are trying to provoke aren’t you.
Ridiculuous proposition.
I could see the possibility of 7-8 million, even if I wouldn’t support it. But 30 million….
Where would the extra 25 million live? And what would that mean for our standard of living? What would it mean for our beaches and natural environment?
I will put it back to you, since you are an immigrant. Why did you come to NZ and choose to live here, if you had a problem with our small population? Wasn’t our smallness an attraction? And why didn’t you, or why don’t you, move to a much bigger city and country if you think bigger is so much better???
Well I'm trying to open people's minds, yes. But in all sincerity, I don't see a problem with the population density of say France or Spain, which is equivalent to a population of about 25-30 million in NZ.
I'll try to answer all of your questions above:
The extra people would live throughout the country of course, there are so many small places in NZ, there are also so many empty beaches, I assume you have been in the South Island?
I came her because of woman, to whom I'm still happily married to. I stayed here because of the amazing opportunity to make a fortune through both commercial and residential property investment and the amazing lifestyle such investments provide.
To answer your last question, I already live in the largest city in NZ, personally I would struggle to live in a smaller city, I like having all the choices of endless restaurants, sporting events, concerts, shops etc… This is just me, of course others prefer a smaller place and there are so, so many, many tiny places in NZ.
Have I been in the South Island, what a condescending question. My mother was from Christchurch, and I have lived in Queenstown and Nelson.
I don’t have the time or interest to respond really, but you’ve totally ignored as to how you would start getting lots of additional people living in all those towns, when you need work in the first place, other than for retirees of course. It’s totally chicken and egg, it’s nowhere near as simple as you have made it appear.
I like living in big cities too, anywhere smaller than Auckland is too small. Auckland is already a bit small for my liking, but it’s fine.
But that’s a totally different thing to your proposition.
"I stayed here because of the amazing opportunity to make a fortune through both commercial and residential property investment and the amazing lifestyle such investments provide"
Lol - if you want to understand why Yvil wants to add another 25 million people to the country, it's to expand his property investment empire. Which is consistent with many other immigrants I've talked to and you see on the property investment pages of Facebook! Move to NZ and start up a property investment empire to live of the labour of those who were born here (and are too gullible to see what is going on - and no I'm not xenophobic...but when you have a housing crisis...this isn't the solution to the problem!)
Be great for the country though Yvil....how many rent slaves would like...a few thousand for you personally....or were you thinking about a higher number?
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