Migration to and from New Zealand

A while back I read something on Kiwiblog talking about the reduction in New Zealanders moving overseas.

So what exactly are the drivers underlying New Zealand’s migration?

New Zealanders leaving and returning

I produced graph (1) below from Statistics New Zealand Infoshare data, which shows permanent or long term migration to and from New Zealand, for New Zealand citizens, by quarter for the period 1980 to date.
I have used blue to indicate arrivals into NZ, green to indicate departures from NZ (shown as a negative figure), and brown to indicate net migration of New Zealanders.










One thing which jumps out of this graph is that migration into New Zealand by New Zealand citizens (ie the return of the diaspora) has remained constant for the past thirty years, fluctuating seasonally between 5,000 and 10,000 migrants per quarter.
Thus New Zealanders’ net migration is driven entirely by emigration from New Zealand. I can see three waves of migration in the past thirty years in graph (1), illustrated by my black arrows:
a) 1983-89 post Muldoon , ‘can the last to leave NZ turn the lights out’,
b) 1991-2001, and
c) 2003-2008.
I don’t know enough economic history to posit reasons behind the latter two waves, but it looks like the third wave of migration has abated and the net position is heading back toward zero net migration.
Interestingly, net migration has not stayed positive for more than one quarter at a time at any point since 1980. Thus, over the past thirty years New Zealanders have consistently left New Zealand (as a net position), the only variable has been how many have left in any given quarter.

So is New Zealand’s migration driven by New Zealanders leaving? In a word: partially.

Foreign citizens moving to New Zealand and subsequently emigrating

Graph (2) below shows permanent or long term migration to and from New Zealand, for non-New Zealand citizens (foreign citizens), by quarter for the period 1980 to date.











Here, the number of foreign citizens leaving New Zealand has remained constant, roughly, with 5,000 to 6,000 departures per quarter over the last five years. A example of this behaviour would be migrating to New Zealand and then migrating to Australia four years down the track, due to Australia’s tougher entry requirements from the original country.
The variance in net migration is driven by foreign citizens arriving in New Zealand, with two distinct waves:
a) 1991-1996, and
b) 1999-2002.

Thus we have two strong and highly fluctuating drivers on net migration: New Zealanders leaving the country, and foreign citizens. Which of these is stronger? Graph (3) shows these two migration flows, and their net effect (in brown)











The net effect here (brown line) is highly variable over the past thirty years, and over the last five years this net effect has been roughly equal to zero.

To get back to the original point:

Yes, there has been a marked slowdown in New Zealanders migrating overseas in the past few months. However, this has been cancelled out by an opposing slowdown in foreign citizens migrating to New Zealand.
So, the net migration effect (brown line in graph 3) is roughly equal to zero.

As an example of how this might impact 'ordinary' New Zealanders: If you are looking for a driver behind NZ house prices remaining high, migration is not it. Less New Zealanders are leaving NZ, so this could theoretically increase demand for housing stock. However less foreign citizens are entering NZ, so this would theoretically decrease demand for housing stock.
Net effect on housing due to migration= zero.