Population Changes

Te Ao Hou, 1973, Page 26

Population Changes As I have said, the Pakeha were at first few in number. When he first began to arrive in New Zealand in the early part of the last century, reliable authorities estimate that there were about 200,000 of the Maori people. Then, sadly, because of European-introduced diseases and European-introduced firearms (which were used both in the land wars between the European and the Maori, as well as in the tribal wars between the Maori people themselves), low birth rates, high child mortality, and, as is said in New Zealand's Official Year Book, a feeling of race despair, engendered by loss of land, defeat in war and breakdown in health, led to a drastic drop in population in the second half of the last century. By 1896 the population had fallen to 40,000. less than 5 percent of the total population. Some writers and thinkers saw the Maori as a dying people, and even wept tears in anticipation of his departure from this world. However, and very fortunately, this was not to be—from the turn of the century the Maori population has increased continuously and in recent years quite dramatically. Thus since 1900 it has increased five-fold and in the past 20 years it has practically doubled. This increase has been not only absolute but also relative to the total population, thus the rate of increase of the Maori population in the past ten years has been about consistently double the national rate. During this period there was a great inflow of Pakeha, perhaps more in the early stages, with later a fairly steady stream mainly coming from the British Isles, but also including Danes, Dalmatians, Greeks, Poles, Dutch, Indians and Chinese. In spite of all this, the Maori population has more than kept pace with the Pakeha growth, and now stands at between 8 to 10 percent of the total population. To add to this picture we have to note recent changes in living patterns. In 1936 only 8,000 Maoris, who were then 10 percent of the total, lived in the cities and boroughs, whereas 25 years later, in 1971, about 125,000 (about 55 percent of the total) live in urban areas. In recent years the growth in the urban Maori population has exceeded the overall growth figure—this means that the rural Maori population is decreasing. What we have witnessed in our life-time is what has been described as the greatest Polynesian migration in history—because of the numbers involved—the movement from the country to the town. One consequence of this is that the great city of Auckland, in which we are, is proud to call itself the largest Polynesian city in the world. These increases are still going on. In the five years between the last two censuses, the Maori population of Auckland increased by 25 percent, that of Wellington by nearly 50 percent and that of Christchurch by about one-third. While we are talking about Maori population we must not overlook the question of age distribution—a matter to which I shall refer again. More than 60 percent of those people in New Zealand now classified as Maori are under the age of 21, while the figure for the total population is only 43 percent. Thirty-four percent of Maoris are under 10, compared with 22 percent of the total population. It is accordingly not surprising that the average Maori breadwinner has a larger number of dependents than his non-Maori counterpart. An additional and important feature of recent times is that, along with the migration

of the Maori from his country districts to the town, we have had a rapid increase in the flow into New Zealand of people from the Pacific Islands. The great majority of these are Polynesian people from those islands with which New Zealand has been particularly associated, such as Western Samoa, Cook Islands, Tokelau Islands and Niue, but the influence of the others is beginning to be felt. In round figures we must have quite 40,000 Pacific Islanders now in New Zealand, of whom probably half live in Auckland. In this connection I refer again to this important question of age structure. Our friends who come from the Pacific Islands, are almost wholly concentrated in about the 20–30 age bracket. There are hardly any old people, as there are amongst the Maori and the Pakeha, and although there is a substantial and growing number of infants and children born here to Island parents, generally speaking the infants and children do not come here by way of immigration. Thus you have a situation where the Island population is heavily concentrated in the young adult group.