Immigrants from the Pacific: “Drain on the Economy” or Active Participation in the Labor Force?

Abstract

In May 2008, a major controversy about the participation of Pacific Islanders and their descendants in the New Zealand economy was initiated by the release of a report claiming they were “a drain on the economy,” were becoming an “underclass” and displayed “significant and enduring underachievement.” This report received considerable media attention at the same time that the first results of New Zealand's Longitudinal Immigration Survey (LisNZ) were released. The results of the LisNZ received much less attention in the media, even though they contained considerable information about the participation of Pacific migrants in the labor force. This paper reviews some of the findings contained in the May 2008 release of LisNZ data as well as some additional information relating to the larger group of Pacific migrants who entered under all categories of approval spanning skilled migration, business migration, family sponsorship, humanitarian provisions, as well as the special Pacific categories. Three simple indices of labor market participation are used to compare migrants entering under the special Pacific categories with Pacific migrants who gained approval for residence under the other categories. Greater attention is then focussed on the labor market participation of three groups of Pacific migrants – Fiji Indians, Samoans and Tongans. Fiji Indians are included because they are the largest single group of immigrants from a Pacific country in the LisNZ survey database. The evidence generated by the first wave interviews of the LisNZ does not support an argument that Pacific migrants are failing to gain employment in New Zealand and thus becoming a “drain on the economy” or that “Polynesian immigration fuels an underclass.” On the three measures of labor force participation there were generally small differences between the Pacific migrant groups, however these were defined, and the rest of the migrants interviewed in the LisNZ. There were some expected differences in occupation distributions, education levels, and ways of obtaining work in New Zealand. But these differences are not indications of “underachievement” or any systemic failure of policies regulating immigration from the Pacific.