New Zealand has a highly mobile population. Increasingly, people have a different residence compared with where they were living five years ago at the previous census. At the 2006 Census, 49 percent of the resident population, who were resident in NZ at the previous census, were living at the same residence, but the remaining (51 percent) were living at a different residence from five years previously. Historically, both the number and proportion of residents who lived elsewhere five years ago has always exceeded the proportion of residents who lived at the same residence. In 2006, however, this trend had reversed.
Table 2
Population Distribution
By usual residence five years ago
1991–2006 Censuses |
| Usual residence five years ago |
1991 |
1996 |
2001 |
2006 |
| Percent of population |
| Same usual residence |
44.4 |
41.4 |
40.8 |
37.1 |
| Elsewhere in NZ |
38.9 |
35.0 |
36.4 |
38.3 |
| Moved from overseas |
4.7 |
6.0 |
6.4 |
8.5 |
| Not born |
8.2 |
7.7 |
7.2 |
6.8 |
| Residual(1) |
3.8 |
9.8 |
9.2 |
9.3 |
| All residents |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
100.0 |
(1) Includes no fixed abode, urban area and NZ not further defined, and not stated.
At the 2006 Census, people living in minor urban areas were more mobile than people living in main, secondary or rural areas; 53 percent of the population living in minor urban areas had been living at a different residence at the time of the previous census in 2001. This was a significant increase from 44 percent at the 1996 Census.
Figure 2
Among residents of main urban areas in 2006 who had changed residence, almost 90 percent had moved within or between main urban areas, and only about 10 percent had moved from other urban areas or from rural areas. Conversely, much larger proportions of movers living in rural centres or other rural areas had moved from urban areas (49 percent in rural centres and 61 percent in rural and other areas). Overall, the lesser populated areas (that is, minor or rural areas with populations of 10,000 or less) had higher proportions of people having moved from other area categories.
Figure 3
