Introduction & Session Notes. Opening Address. Plenary 1, 2, 3, 4. Panel Discussion 1A, 1B, 1C. Review & Preview. Plenary 5. Panel Discussion 2A. Session Notes, Population Change & Social Services. Panel Discussion 2B, 2C, 2D. Plenary 6. Panel Discussion 3A, 3B, 3C. Closing Address. |
PLENARY 3 - POPULATION CHANGE AND THE ROLE OF IMMIGRATION |
Population Studies Centre, University of Waikato AND PROFESSOR RICHARD BEDFORD, 2 - Population Dynamics 3 - Population Structure 4 - Population Policy: Issues 5 - References
SESSION NOTES,
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2.5.6 Characteristics of Migrants: Ethnic Pluralism
The role which immigration has performed in transforming the ethnic composition of the population has been much more significant than the overall contribution this process has made to population growth. It is difficult to compare directly the ethnic components of New Zealand's population through time because of changes in definition of the major groups. A simple illustration drawing on census data for 1961 and 1996 will serve to indicate the nature of migration-induced changes in ethnic composition.
In 1961, around the time that the first major wave of non-European descent migrants during the twentieth century was getting established (the Pacific Island Polynesians), 92 percent of the New Zealand population was classed as "European" and 7 percent were classed as Maori. Just over 1 percent were of other ethnic origins. By 1996 the European component of the population had fallen to 72 percent, 14.5 percent were Maori, and 9.4 percent were of other ethnic origins. Another 150,000 (4.1 percent) did not record their ethnicity in the census. Immigration, followed by natural increase amongst immigrant populations, has ensured that by 1996 New Zealand had Asian and Pacific ethnic groups which were larger than the Maori population had been at the time of sustained European contact.
It is also necessary to add a cautionary word here. Because of their higher visibility, Pacific Island and Asian migrants have appeared to predominate during periods with high influxes, such as in the early 1970s (Pacific Islanders) or the 1990s (Asians). In reality, however, even in the heaviest migration year of the 1970s, despite public perceptions only six percent of PLTs were Pacific Islanders, and during the peak period of Asian migration in the 1990s they were equalled or exceeded in number by migrants of European nationality or descent.
The "visibility" of non-Maori and non-European immigrants in the population is heightened by the fact that immigrants are much more highly concentrated in particular places than the resident population. In 1996, for example, 94 percent of the 80,000 people aged 5 years and over of Pacific Island and Asian ethnic origins, who had been born overseas and who had migrated to New Zealand during the previous 5 years, were living in the main urban areas. Just over two-thirds of these people were living in Auckland alone. By contrast, amongst people of all ethnic groups aged 5 years and over, who had been born in New Zealand and whose place of usual residence in New Zealand five years earlier was known, 66 percent were living in main urban areas, and only 23 percent in Auckland. Returning New Zealanders also tended to disperse more, with in 1996 only 28 percent of Maori and 31 percent of returning Pakeha who had been overseas five years before settling in Auckland
It is the spatial concentration of certain groups of immigrants in particular cities, rather than the absolute net migration gains to New Zealand through international migration, which has generated a perception of "massive" contributions to growth, especially in the first half of the 1970s and the 1990s respectively. Immigrants "of colour" have become even more obvious in a few urban areas because of a tendency to cluster in particular neighbourhoods. The contact which resident New Zealanders have with immigrants is thus highly uneven, although the public debate at times would suggest that immigrants are changing the human face of society everywhere.
2.6 Population Dynamics: A Summary of Past Trends and a Prospective Glance
2.6.1 Retrospective
Over much of the 150 years since the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, New Zealanders constituted a population whose changes were dominated by fluctuations in levels of growth, produced by a mix of factors whose constituents were highly volatile. By synthesising outputs from separate research findings on natural increase and migration, we have been able to identify the contributions of key factors and thus to give a more composite picture of growth trends and their causes. This also permits a more comprehensive view of possible future growth scenarios.
For Pakeha, past growth came from waves of migratory inflows, often followed, however, by net outflows. It also came from very high fertility rates in the early years, then from rates of reproduction which, through periods of ups and downs, nevertheless remained relatively high for developed countries. When there were turndowns in migration, these were often concealed by relatively high rates of natural increase, while the outflows of New Zealanders were frequently counterbalanced by the immigration of non-New Zealanders. Finally, for much of the last 150 years, life expectancies have been above those in similar societies.
In the case of Maori, the mix has been rather different: a rapid decrease in numbers after colonisation was followed by a period of stationarity until about 1890. This then ushered in the six decades of accelerating growth this century, culminating in levels of natural increase around 1960 which reached biological limits (40 per 1,000 of population). Since then they have seen fertility levels decrease very significantly, and also the movement of large numbers overseas, particularly to Australia.
2.6.2 Prospective
For the foreseeable future growth is likely to be low, bringing increments of just over 20 percent between 1996 and 2026, as against increases of the order of almost 80 percent from 1936 to 1966, and growth by more than a third between 1966 and 1996, even though by that period both natural increase and migration were slowing. In 1936 there had been fewer than one and one-half million New Zealanders; by 1966 the figure exceeded two and one-half. But the target of five million population for the turn of the millennium, called for a few years ago by some commentators, may still be unachieved at the mid-point of the twenty first century. In AD 2026, the number may only be around four and one-half million.
Despite momentum effects, Maori growth will also slow. Over the forty years between 1951 and 1991 the Maori population increased by 275 percent, but from 1991 to 2031 growth will only be 54 percent.
This projected period of slower increase is primarily a product of low levels of fertility, an attribute shared by all Western developed countries since the advent in the 1970s of what European demographers have called "the Second Demographic Transition" (Davis, 1986; van de Kaa, 1987; Lesthaeghe, 1991; for a comparative analysis on New Zealand see Pool, 1992 and 1996b), low levels of mortality and fluctuating levels of migration. It is relatively simple to project forward the numbers of people already born and enumerated in recent censuses, but it is far more risky to forecast their future reproductive intentions and behaviours, or the impacts of migration.
At present it seems that fertility is going to hover around exact replacement (2.0-2.1 births per couple), and will be driven mainly by the delayed childbearing of the majority Pakeha population. Maori rates of reproduction are also barely above replacement, albeit that their childbearing occurs on average at the early childbearing ages. Of course, all this could change quite rapidly as van de Kaa (1988) warns, with sudden shifts in ages at childbearing and in family size, as occurred at the end of World War II when the baby-boom erupted, or in the mid-late 1970s when both Maori and Pakeha went through a "reproductive revolution" to reach present low levels.
Migration levels are perhaps the least predictable as they can change radically through sudden policy shifts, or by fluctuations in the labour market and in economic fortunes, particularly in the case of Trans-Tasman flows. Nevertheless, the historical experience has been that high levels of inflow rarely persist for more than a year or two, and thus the argument that a major trend of long-term sustained growth could come from this factor is not plausible.
That said, at least until well into next century, New Zealand's levels of growth will be positive and higher than those of much of Western Europe, although, given our migration outflows, perhaps not as high as those in other neo-Europes. But the cause of increments will be less attributable to natural increase, particularly relatively high fertility, but will be through momentum (or "pipeline") growth, reinforced, perhaps, by migration inflows (if these occur on a significant scale and also if they counterbalance outflows). This is due to the passage through successive life-cycle stages of the large cohorts born in the baby-boom, plus twenty years on from these the larger cohorts born during the baby-blip around 1990. Momentum growth has a multiplier effect as large cohorts reach procreative ages and reproduce, and even if family sizes remain small, the greater number of couples will ensure larger birth cohorts. Thus, there could well be a "baby-blip echo-effect" around AD 2010-2015; then 25 years after that; and so on.
Future population change will come increasingly from shifts in composition, above all those attendant upon momentum growth. The seeds of composition-driven change have, however, already been sown, not the least by their most well-known but perhaps most easily misunderstood manifestation, the baby-boom. Among both the public and policy makers, the baby boomers' arrival at older ages some two decades or so from now has not only been seen as a major and urgent policy issue, even a threat to the very existence of the welfare state (James, 1991), but has often been viewed as imminent if not immediate. Yet among the variables which are ignored but are as important in this equation, are the post baby-boom decreases in fertility, which have altered the balance of demographic dependency to be experienced once the baby-boomers finally reach old age. Into this must also be factored the oft-forgotten effects of the circa-1990 baby-blip, which is already influencing educational policies, and will have a major impact on tertiary educational and employment policies around 2010, well before we have to deal with ageing baby-boomers.
To add to this mix, we have recently undergone shifts in patterns of ethnic diversity, as a result not only of the exogenous factor of migration, but also the endogenous forces of differential patterns of natural increase among resident ethnic groups. Finally, not only have the labour force age-groups been subject to their own sub-set of compositional changes, but they have also been subject to transformations in their industrial structures and patterns of labour force participation. In the next section of this paper we turn to the historical changes in population composition. We synthesise it by briefly reviewing some projected structural shifts.
3
- POPULATION STRUCTURE
- The population dynamics discussed in the previous not only produce changes in growth, but also have an effect on population structure. Moreover, the three factors, fertility, mortality and migration, interact in complex ways in producing trends in growth and structure. By comparison with dynamics, population compositional change has been a relatively neglected factor. Thus, this section of the paper will look at some broader more theoretical questions as well as describing New Zealand trends, but with a cross-comparative perspective.
In high fertility populations with declining mortality, population growth is the key demographic factor affecting all aspects of policy and development. But most, probably all, developed countries, even those which are migrant receiving states, now have very low rates of growth, and this will be the case for the foreseeable future (Myers, 1993). Indeed, this shift from high growth is a world-wide phenomenon, a function of the massive declines in fertility over the last two decades in all but the poorest countries (Pool, 1994b). This is because of the dynamics noted earlier, and above all the declines in fertility, as in the case of Pakeha, to sub-replacement levels, or, as for Maori, to low replacement levels.
The major demographic forces affecting New Zealand society and social policy at a national level are now structural: age/sex, industrial labour force and ethnic composition. Each of these reflect the combined effects of past fertility trends, and above all cohort sizes, as these are altered by the processes of mortality and migration. Both of the latter of these, as will be discussed below, are highly age-specific.
3.1 Structural Change: General Issues
3.1.1 Natural Increase and Population Structure
High fertility populations with declining mortality levels have very young age structures; in contrast declines in fertility produce ageing, simply because there are proportionately fewer and fewer in each birth cohort. This is the reason why New Zealand and all developed countries, and even Third World nations, except for the least developed countries, face long-term structural ageing -- an increase in the proportion of the population at older ages (Pool, 1994b). That said, New Zealand is different from Europe because, so far this century, every cohort Maori or Pakeha has replaced itself.
In high mortality populations it is the youngest ages which are depleted through failure to survive. As mortality declines, and more infants and children survive, the age structure gets younger. The younger age structure of the Maori population, by comparison with the Pakeha, is a function of the continuation of high fertility into the 1960s, a trend much strengthened by the rapid declines in the force of mortality at younger ages in the period 1945-61. In contrast, in low mortality populations with low fertility not only do the declines in fertility effect structural ageing, but improved survivorship over the younger and middle age by successive cohorts means that more and more persons reach older ages, producing numerical or momentum ageing. This factor combines with differences in the size of birth cohorts, which fluctuated in size for Pakeha this century, but grew monotonically for Maori until about 1970, to produce age composition differences within the older age-group. Finally, structural and momentum ageing have been further reinforced since about 1970 by, for the first time in history, improved survivorship within the older ages (Dittgen and Legoux, 1990).
3.1.2 Migration and Population Structure
Migration must be added into this equation. Obviously, immigration shores up growth, emigration diminishes it, but with few exceptions (see Figure 2.9) in our demographic history since early Pakeha settlement, migration has been outpaced by natural increase as a factor of growth. Nevertheless, in some periods the impact of migration has been very significant. Recently, moreover, migration has altered the ethnic structure, although perhaps not as dramatically as some commentators have argued (Bedford and Pool, 1996).
Far less obviously, but perhaps more importantly, as was noted in Chapter Two, migration makes its impact directly on the age structure. This is because it is a highly age-specific phenomenon: New Zealand-born emigrants tend to be adolescents or young adults, immigrants to be at the marrying or early parenting ages. Quoting estimates made by Gordon Carmichael from data covering the period 1901 until 1981, Zodgekar showed that the contribution of immigration to labour force growth had been very significant "a major factor in the expansion of the work age population... the real significance of immigrant gain during these years arose from its concentration in the younger working age-group, that is those under 40." Against this the period 1976-81 experienced a "substantial loss" through emigration and "the loss [was] particularly substantial among younger age-groups" (Zodgekar, 1985, 103). As we noted in the last chapter the argument that recent immigration to New Zealand will reduce ageing is fallacious because most of the immigrants belong to those very baby-boom cohorts which are going to produce increased structural ageing, and also probably have low fertility (sub-replacement) patterns close to those of their Pakeha peers (Bedford and Lidgard, 1994). In contrast, in the baby-boom, immigrants did increase the reproductive capacity of New Zealand, while in the late 1970s the emigration of New Zealand-born may have had the opposite effect (Pool, 1991b ).
In recent years, New Zealand's net migrant populations have, however, fluctuated markedly in age composition reflecting the complex mix of net outflows of New Zealanders and net inflows of people from Australia, the Pacific Islands, Asia, the United Kingdom and a host of other sources (Bedford, Lidgard and Young, 1996). Generalisation both about overall age compositions for net migrant flows through time, or about the contributions which migrants from different regions make to the overall age composition of net flows, is unwise. As Pool et al (1996, 8-9) recently argued "[u]nfortunately migration does not lend itself to easy analysis, for it is not a simple phenomenon, a critical fact often not recognised by commentators."
At times the sex-ratio of migration may become distorted, the high masculinity of nineteenth century inflows, particularly in goldrush eras, being a good example of this (Neville, 1985). These distortions have long term effects, not just simply on population structure but even on its dynamics. High levels of masculinity affected not only the low levels of celibacy among young women colonists in the 1870s (Sceats and Pool, 1985), but also the marked masculinity levels in external causes of death at 65+ years at the same period (Pool, 1985).
Within the migrant populations themselves there are also likely to be extreme age, and often gender, imbalances. This is because of the age-specificity of the process, combined with the fact that flows tend to be in waves rather than occurring consistently over time. The characteristics of the flows -- their sex-ratio, and whether it takes a mass, chain, family or whatever form -- reinforce these distortions. This has multiplier effects in terms of factors such as levels of endogamy/exogamy, and assimilation.
3.1.3 The Labour Force and Ethnic Groups
Of as great importance, at least economically but frequently overlooked by labour market analysts, is the effect of differential cohort size on the growth and age composition of the labour force, of its industrial structures, and even its occupations and jobs (Kaufman, 1982; for New Zealand see Poot, 1988). Age structural changes are not the only factor effecting labour force changes: industrial labour force transformation is of major importance. It is an exogenous (ie non-demographic) factor, some of the driving forces for which will be discussed below.
Each ethnic group has a distinct composition. This is a result of the unique demographic experiences it has undergone in the past. Similarly, internal population redistribution is a function of all these factors: patterns of fertility and mortality, and both international and internal migration flows, in relation to the age/sex and ethnic structure of any region. These interrelations are very complex, with every region being different, both in terms of its rate of growth and the resulting composition.
3.2 Composition Changes: Trends
3.2.1 Age Composition
After growth, the single most important demographic variable affecting social processes and policy is the age/sex distribution of the population. Indeed, in slow growth populations it becomes the key factor, as is witnessed by current concerns about ageing in developed countries, a trend described by one Belgian commentator as "a profound societal mutation" (Loriaux, 1990,3).
In the developed countries over the last two centuries, there has been a gradual upward shift in the share of the population at the three major functional ages: 0-14 years, 15-64, and 65+. As is still true in parts of the third world today, more than 40 percent were at the youngest ages, and less than seven percent at the oldest. But this changed gradually from 1850 to 1950, and then more rapidly thereafter, to the situation today with less than 20 percent at the youngest ages, yet more than 15 percent at the oldest (Loriaux, 1990) .
Both New Zealand populations have deviated from this simple transition. Overall, New Zealand is only now reaching a stage when its age structure could be considered to be "ageing" in either of its two senses: structural or momentum. Historically, as is shown in Figure 3.1, the small number of elderly among pioneer Pakeha colonists meant that the percent aged 65+ was very low (1.2 percent, 1874), but grew to reach nine percent at the start of the baby-boom, then dipped only to increase again to 10 percent by 1981. Ten percent is seen as a threshold figure between a more mature population and the beginning of ageing. The proportions at 0-14 years varied, decreasing at first from over 40 percent (1874-86) to a low of 27 percent (1936), then up to 33 percent in 1961, during the baby-boom, to drop to 27 percent in 1981 (Neville, 1985).
Figure 3.1: Percentage Distribution by Age of the Total Population, Selected Years 
Figure 3.2: Percentage Distribution by Age of the Working Population, Selected Years
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