The settlement experience of Pacific migrants in New Zealand: Insights from LISNZ and the IDI

Pacific migrants:    
high employment, low pay rates,    
trapped by poor English.    

New Zealand has a long history of migration from the Pacific. Migrants from the Pacific, like all people moving to a new country, face the challenges of finding suitable employment and a place to live, accessing education, and forming new social, professional, and community networks while adapting to differences in culture.

Our research uses the Longitudinal Immigration Survey New Zealand (LISNZ) and Statistics New Zealand’s Integrated Data Infrastructure to focus on differences in outcomes between migrants from different Pacific countries who gained residence approval under different visa types.

Pacific migrants interviewed in LISNZ faced a number of challenges to becoming successful and settled in New Zealand, including limited English and low education, which may have caught many in low-paying or part-time work and made them particularly vulnerable to economic conditions. Although most reported good health and generally positive non-economic outcomes in New Zealand, some of their outcomes grew worse over their first three years after residence approval. The reasons for these declines are not wholly clear and could be investigated in future research.

DOI: doi.org/10.29310/WP.2019.02

Citation

Sin, Isabelle and Judd Ormsby. 2019. "The settlement experience of Pacific migrants in New Zealand: Insights from LISNZ and the IDI." A Motu Working Paper 19-02, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research. Wellington, New Zealand.