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Printable version
Key Statistics - article, October 1999, p. 7-12
People born overseas1
The latest publication in Statistics New Zealand’s New Zealand Now series, People Born Overseas, ties together information on New Zealand’s overseas-born population from the 1996 Census. It provides an outline of the context in which international migration occurs and describes the demographic and cultural characteristics of people born overseas including their ethnic diversity. It also sheds light on other aspects of the lives of people born overseas by looking at their education, employment, income, family situation and housing and by drawing comparisons with the New Zealand-born population. The article below is drawn from information in the book.
At the time of the 1996 Census there were 605,019 people living in New Zealand who were born overseas, making up 17.5 percent of the resident population, up from 15.8 percent in 1991.
People born in the United Kingdom and Ireland were still New Zealand’s largest overseas-born group despite significant changes in immigration flows in recent years, see Figure 1. People born in the United Kingdom and Ireland made up 38.0 percent of the overseas-born population. The next largest groups were Asia (around half of whom were born in North-east Asia) at 19.5 percent and the Pacific Islands at 16.4 percent.
Of the overseas-born population, nearly three-quarters were established immigrants (ie living in New Zealand at the time of the 1991 Census) and about a quarter were recent immigrants (ie living overseas, or not born, at the time of the 1991 Census).
Age
At the 1996 Census, a greater proportion of the overseas-born population was of working age (15-64 years) or elderly (65 years and over) when compared to the New Zealand-born population. The largest age groups for the overseas-born population were 45 to 49 years for males and 30 to 34 years for females compared to 0 to 4 years for New Zealand-born males and females.
Recent immigrants were concentrated in the younger age groups with 68.2 percent aged less than 35 and 6.7 percent aged 55 or over. Established immigrants tended to be older reflecting their longer time in New Zealand with 28.3 percent aged less than 35 and 35.3 percent aged 55 or over.
The age structure of particular overseas-born groups reflects their migration history. European groups had a much older age structure than those who had migrated more recently, such as Asian groups. More than a quarter (27.4 percent) of people born in the United Kingdom or Ireland were aged 65 or over compared to just 5.0 percent of people born in Asia.
Location
In 1996, 92.5 percent of the overseas-born population lived in urban areas compared to 84.0 percent of the New Zealand-born population.
People born overseas were more likely to live in the North Island, with 82.7 percent doing so, compared to 73.2 percent of New Zealand-born people.
Nearly half of the overseas-born population lived in the Auckland region, compared to around a quarter of the New Zealand-born population, reflecting the dominance of Auckland as a settlement destination. The region was home to 70.6 percent of people born in the Pacific Islands, and more than half of those born in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. All other overseas-born groups had over one-third of their population living in the region.
Education
Overseas-born people were more likely to have educational qualifications than New Zealand-born people, particularly degree qualifications, see Table 1.
However, the education of overseas-born people differed markedly between regions. People born in the Pacific Islands were the most likely to have no qualification - with nearly half having no qualification - and the least likely to have a tertiary qualification. In contrast, people born in Africa (excluding North Africa) were the least likely to have no qualification and the most likely to have a tertiary qualification, see Figure 2.
Overseas-born groups with refugees (for whom there are no educational requirements) had noticeably higher percentages of people with no qualifications. Nearly three-quarters of recent Cambodian immigrants and nearly two-thirds of recent Vietnamese immigrants had no qualifications. This reflects the absence of educational level requirements for refugees.
People born overseas were only slightly more likely than New Zealand-born people to be studying, at about 1 in 7 in each group. Recent immigrants were much more likely to be studying than established immigrants, with nearly one-third of recent immigrants studying compared to just over one-tenth of established immigrants. This reflects the fact that just over a quarter of all recent adult immigrants were 15 to 24-year-olds but less than one-tenth of established adult immigrants were in this age group. The proportion of Asia-born 15 to 24-year-olds who were studying full time (around 75 percent) was much higher than the proportion of other overseas-born and New Zealand-born people in this age group who were studying full time.
Employment
At the time of the 1996 Census working-aged people born overseas made up 18.1 percent of the labour force, compared to 17.1 percent in 1986.
The labour force participation rate for recent immigrants of working age (57.8 percent) was significantly lower than that of established immigrants (74.1 percent) and the New Zealand-born population (77.0 percent). One explanation for this is the greater involvement of recent immigrants in study. Around 1 in every 2 recent immigrants not in the labour force was undertaking full or part-time study, compared with around 1 in 4 New Zealand-born people.
As can be seen in Figure 3, recent immigrants were more likely than New Zealand-born people to work in professional occupations. Overall, 12.4 percent of all employed people of working age were employed in professional occupations, while 20.2 percent of recent immigrants were in this occupation group. Established immigrants were also more likely than New Zealand-born people to work in professional occupations, though by a smaller margin, at 15.1 percent.
Recent immigrants were more likely to be unemployed, regardless of their qualifications, than established immigrants or people born in New Zealand, with 16.8 percent of recent immigrants in the labour force seeking work compared to 7.2 percent of established immigrants and 7.5 percent of New Zealand-born people, see Figure 4.
Unemployment levels were particularly high for recent immigrants who recorded medicine, civil engineering or dental studies as a field of study. More than 1 in every 4 of these people was unemployed at the time of the 1996 Census.
Income
Established immigrants had very similar income levels to New Zealand-born people with a median income of $21,300 for men and $12,700 for women. (The median income represents the midpoint, which means that half the incomes are higher than this level and half are lower.) The median income levels of recent immigrants, however, were much lower at $13,200 for men and $5,900 for women.
Factors that help to account for this difference in income levels include the lower level of labour force participation and higher level of unemployment among recent immigrants. Recent immigrants who were employed full time had a very similar median income to that of established immigrants and New Zealand-born people who were employed full time.
The median incomes of overseas-born men and women who had arrived between one and four years before the 1996 Census were almost double those of overseas-born men and women who had arrived more recently.
There were also significant differences in the income levels of overseas-born people from different birthplaces, although the amount of variation was much greater for men than for women, see Figure 5. For men, median income ranged from $10,300 for those born in the Middle East and North Africa to $33,400 for those born in South Africa. Almost 1 in 3 men from South Africa had an income of $50,001 or more. For women, median income was highest for those from North America at $14,200 and lowest for those from Asia at $6,600.
Some factors that help to account for this variation in income according to birthplace are differences in the labour force participation rate and occupational distribution. For example, recent immigrants born in Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and South Africa all had a much higher labour force participation level (over 75 percent) than recent immigrants born in Asia (less than 50 percent). In addition, of those aged 15 to 64, a high proportion of men born in South Africa (about 1 in 3) and of women born in North America (more than 1 in 4) were professionals, an occupation group that tends to provide relatively high incomes.
People Born Overseas is available from Statistics New Zealand and selected bookstores. The cost is $24.95.
Footnote
PplBornOseas.pdf (277Kb)
The downloadable file is in Adobe Acrobat format. If you do not have the Adobe Acrobat Reader you may download the reader to view or print the contents of this file.
New Zealand Now (Census 96) (1998) - Reference Reports
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