By Paul Spoonley*
The first data from the 2023 census will be released on May 29 – and not before time. We will see how successful – or not – the census exercise was in achieving participation and coverage.
It’s no secret past censuses have faced real challenges. We would not want to see a repeat of the poor return rate and low Māori participation that affected the previous census in 2018.
Stats NZ has said this latest five-yearly census has counted 99% of the population. But this figure is a combination of those who filled out the census forms (about 4.5 million) and others counted from existing government data (about half a million).
We can also cast forward by looking at the 12 months since the 2023 census was taken. In the year to March 2024, the key indicators are that the New Zealand population has changed significantly from where we were in March 2023.
Fertility continues to decline
In March 2023, the total fertility rate (births per woman) was 1.65 – well below the rate required for population replacement. In March 2024, the rate had dropped again to 1.52, a not inconsiderable decline in a single year.
Some forecasts had assumed New Zealand might stabilise at around the 1.6 rate. But the latest data show a steady downward trend. Internationally, and in New Zealand, the higher educational credentials of Millennial and Gen Z women, combined with their participation in the paid workforce, are driving this trend.
Additionally, the economic pressures facing those generations are having an effect. When it comes to decisions about having children, the cost of living, especially housing, and the increasing need for two incomes, are now much greater considerations.
When we reach a fertility rate of 1.3, as seems inevitable, New Zealand will join the ranks of the “lowest low-fertility” countries.
Aside from the actual fertility rate, there is also an absolute decline in births. In March 2024, there were 56,277 live births in New Zealand, compared with 58,707 a year earlier (2,430 fewer births).
That is why the Ministry of Education is forecasting 30,000 fewer children in the education system by 2032.
New Zealand is now hovering around 56,000 births within a population of 5.3 million. Fifty years ago, in 1974, there were 59,334 births when the population was three million.
More arriving and many more leaving
The number of immigrant arrivals peaked in December 2023 at 244,763, a net gain of 134,445. Both figures significantly exceed the annual average from 2002 to 2019 of 119,000 arrivals and 27,500 net migration gain.
As of March 2024, arrival numbers have dropped back to 239,000, with a net migration gain of 111,100. Both numbers are still very high, but it suggests the coming year will see a further decline.
Still, New Zealand’s population grew last year by 2.8%, with net migration gain accounting for the bulk of it (2.4%). This is a very high annual growth rate compared to most OECD countries.
But the other side of the story is the surge in New Zealanders leaving. In the 12 months to March 2024, 78,200 New Zealand citizens migrated to another country, leaving a net loss of 52,500.
As Stats NZ notes with a degree of understatement, this exceeds the previous record of 72,400 departures and net loss of 44,400 citizens in the year to February 2012.
It is not unusual to see a net departure of New Zealand citizens. There was an average annual net migration loss of 26,800 from 2002 to 2013, when numbers were at the previous high. But the causes of the latest outflow deserve further analysis.
Māori near the million mark
Stats NZ confirmed the Māori ethnic population (those who self-identify as Māori) reached 904,100 in December 2023. The annual population increase for Māori was 1.5%. If this trajectory continues, Māori will number one million sometime in the early 2030s.
Māori fertility differs significantly to that of Pākehā. Māori have a much lower median age overall, Māori women have children at a younger age, with more children per mother born on average.
Stats NZ anticipates that by 2043, 21% of all New Zealanders will identify as Māori, up from 17% at the moment. For children, however, 33% will identify as Māori.
The so-called “kohanga reo generations” will be more immersed in tikanga and te reo, with major implications for New Zealand society and the political landscape.
Asian communities are growing and changing
The high levels of inward immigration will add to those identifying as one of the many Asian communities in Aotearoa New Zealand. (And we really do need to find another way of referring to these communities other than with the catch-all “Asian”).
Pre-COVID, the largest number of arrivals came from China. In the past two years, India has become the largest source country, followed by the Philippines and then China. To March 2024, there were 49,800 arrivals from India compared to 26,800 from China.
These immigration trends mean the next two decades (to 2043) will see the number of New Zealanders who identify with one of the Asian communities grow to 24% of the total population (25% for children).
For the moment, three-quarters of Asian community members are immigrants (born in another country), and quite a lot is known about them from past research. But it will be interesting to see how those born and educated in New Zealand forge their path, and what they will contribute.
The census tends to briefly focus attention on New Zealand’s changing population. But we need to spend more time putting the pieces together to understand how much the country is really changing. That includes looking at the trends between censuses – a lot can happen in five years, after all.
*Paul Spoonley, Distinguished Professor, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Massey University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
39 Comments
This census will likely show an increase in number of tertiary qualified people with an influx of migrants, particularly from South Asia where worthless degree mills are always humming.
The number of overseas-experienced candidates with advanced degrees applying for low-to-mid roles in engineering who can't answer simple technical questions without throwing jargon in each sentence baffles me.
Even most of our tertiary institutions lack proper entry criteria on technical grounds such as GRE and will extend an admission offer to anyone with often questionable language skills willing to buy their programme in return for more worthless paper and working rights.
I mean that's the entire point of the "industry" right ... as far as I can tell the aspiring immigrants aren't really buying an education (the education is a means to get a piece of paper that then entitles some form of working/residency rights) and the tertiary institutions couldn't give a tinker's toss as long as the $$$ keep flowing in.
A very serious and important issue. So serious, the government ought to address it specifically with university education incentives. Giving our terrain and geotechnical profiles - we need a much higher percentage of competent engineers than most countries on the planet!
Birth control has been around for over 55 years now. As has feminism. Why then the terminal decline in the TFR now?
The TFR sat between 1.9-2.1 between 1975 - 2010. It then went in to a terminal decline in 2010 reaching a all time low of 1.52 in 2024. It will go below 1.5 later this year.
No doubt this collapse is economic. Housing unaffordability has skyrocketed as has the cost of living. You use to be able to buy a house and pay off a good chunk of your mortgage by your late 20's. In time to start a family. Now you need 2 incomes to just pay the mortgage. Real incomes are in decline in this country. Kids are now an expense the middle class can't afford even with WFF support.
Agreed.
Wife and I are in our early 30s, and if we look our peer group (both friends and professionally) there are a few common scenarios:
- Want kids, but can't afford them - e.g. my wife's best work friend, whom is stuck with her and her partner paying off a massive mortgage at interest rates they never foresaw coming. They both want kids, but it literally isn't in the financial wheelhouse.
- Have had a kid and can't afford a second
- Have had two (or more) and are really struggling. We've got a few friends onto this, e.g. small age gap between child one and two, and between daycare costs, reduced incomes, general CoL etc they all seem to be having a miserable time of it.
It would be a small minority of friends/colleagues of a similar age who have the conventional 2-3 child family and who aren't finding it very difficult, even with what you'd deem respectable middle class jobs e.g. teacher, police officer, mid-ranked engineer etc.
Actually it is the low income workers who are doing the most of the "working hard". Higher income office workers now don't even need to do most the work as computers have taken over most the mentally draining or even arduous elements. See the massive tech integrations with engineering, manufacturing, accounting, customer service, finance, design, legal, planning, risk analysis in insurance etc etc.
Ironically as AI comes in it is best placed at automating replies to managers office emails and conversations. Everything else already has huge amounts of tech integration to do most the actual work.
Have to disagree here. You need to remember there is not equality of income nationwide e.g a mechanic in central Auckland will earn more than a mechanic in Gore by means of hourly rate, and more likely have the ability to ask for greater wages if the business is steady . There will be a LOT of people in lower paid jobs out rurally who rely on WFF. A family member of mine was working in a regional role a couple of years back with a couple of kids and his wife at home, and they still qualified for this.
Yeah those able retirees really need to get back to work and those collecting a benefit while they have high incomes & investment houses are just exceptionally greedy and unethical considering the damage they are doing to the fabric of society.
Benefits should be based on need and ability, not a great sense of entitlement and lazy attitudes after a birthday.
There's also a factor that often gets overlooked in many discussions, and that is longevity of relationship. A couple in their early 30's who have been together from teen years would (throwing a reckon' out here) arguably may be more likely to have saved more for a deposit due to having a better understand each other and their financial propensity to save or spend, splitting rent costs for a room for a longer time thus amplifying savings ability in a flat share situation, pooling food costs etc.
Even in many of the younger generations there is the phrase you can have kids or have housing but not both. Many are waiting to have kids for after they get housing, a dangerous delay, while others with many children are living itinerant lifestyles, forced to constantly move and stints of being homeless or crowding the grandparents housing (delaying moves to retirement housing).
Economics is part but not all of the cause in my view (especially considering in NZ the fertility rate is higher among Maori, who are on average poorer). Many countries have tried financial incentives without huge success. Saying that, I agree that the relentless increases in the cost of housing have probably acted to defer to act of buying a house and settling in a community which is a likely precurser to having children.
Higher rates of teritiary education mean a lot of people are busy with other things during their early 20's. Today there are also many more things 'competing' with the idea of having kids, like travelling, pursuing interests, and the like. Apparently in 2022 or 2023 there were more births by women over 40 than under 20 which I found surprising.
Being towards mid-30's It makes perfect sense to me around the over 40's. Loads of people I know have made the decision that they don't want to have any kids which is perfectly ok, and the cost of living and housing makes it more likely that one doesn't purchase their 1st home until sometime in the 30's depending. Also the factor of longer term relationships from the 20;s splitting and potentially taking longer to find another partner, then making the decision around kids.
The TFR sat between 1.9-2.1 between 1975 - 2010. It then went in to a terminal decline in 2010 reaching a all time low of 1.52 in 2024. It will go below 1.5 later this year.
Wait until you exclude Maori, Pasifika and Asians out of that number; they are the cultures which generally promote family living and if they have children will often have more than just one. If I were to guess the European Pakeha TFR it is already closer to 1 than it is to 1.5.
Birth control has been around for over 55 years now. As has feminism.
Fifty five years is barely two generations. That is not much time in societal terms to have something this big turn around in such a big way. And the ultra-hedonistic/materialistic feminism of today is a completely different beast from the feminism of the 1960s. Parents just one or two generations before that, those which went through the Great Depression, commonly had six, eight or ten children. Often all growing up in a three bedroom house with one toilet - out in a shed in the back yard. So the argument that economics plays a role exists, but it might not be quite as decisive as you think it is.
Having a child has never been more of a choice than in history, given we have so many more opportunities to choose from these days. I dislike using birth rate to determine fertility, as if to say because there are less children born per woman this means they are somehow less fertile? This doesn't separate the ability to conceive vs the choice to and hence is misleading.
as if to say because there are less children born per woman this means they are somehow less fertile?
Once a woman hits her mid to late thirties she is certainly less fertile and measurably so. So as the average age of childbearing increases, by definition those women are, yes, indeed less fertile. For those younger women who would nominally be highly fertile but choose to impair their fertility at this time with birth control, well yes, they too are less fertile. As for declining TFR - well that is the effective, practical fertility rate of the women in any given society. If that is declining then again, the effective real world fertility of the women in that society is declining.
Quotes from Prof Swan...
"in some parts of the world, a woman in her 20s is less fertile than her grandmother was at 35."
"following current projections, sperm counts are set to reach zero in 2045."
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/28/shanna-swan-fertility-r…
Pretty much those who have significant years of study and training. The only students & older workers who are bonded to stay to work out the training period & after are those in our military (even heavily subsidized degrees have no work in NZ requirements).
A huge amount of our most skilled workforce in healthcare is leaving, esp the brightest so really plan a lot of overseas medical travel in your future as the quality of NZ medical services is beyond neglect and incompetence for many simple procedures. Most people with severe illness will not even be able to see specialists for diagnosis so they can begin treatment and will have then a higher rate of disablement & likely die early of preventable treatable causes. Even in cases of sepsis treatment is delayed until after they arrive at deaths door, especially in elder care environments. Death then gets recorded as natural causes with many not being investigated.
I lost staff to undiagnosed cancer and heart conditions that were ignored by doctors as they were seen as being too young or too female. Cases of sepsis, anaphylaxis and internal bleeding were ignored for many of them.
Treatment & diagnosis for things like thyroid or immune issues is practically non existent now. Don't get me started on the horrific cases of treatment delays even for diagnosed neurological cases (where we now also need to use overseas services for genetic testing availability as NZ access is rarer then hens teeth, saw a few in their 50s and 60s left without any support and GPs who could not do much except prescribe pain meds).
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