Isolated at the bottom of the world with a population of just 4.2 million people, New Zealand has long worried about the loss of its best and brightest to bigger countries with bigger opportunities.

That loss ranges from young people who go on working holidays to the UK and do not return, to the likes of John Hood, a captain of industry and former vice-chancellor of the University of Auckland who went to England to lead Oxford University – and who has just announced he will step down

The key factor for New Zealand is to balance those losses with gains from other countries.
University of Waikato deputy vice-chancellor (research) and migration expert, Professor Richard Bedford, says that between 1960 and 2000, New Zealand lost roughly a million people to migration but gained about 1.3 million – a huge rate of turnover for such a small country.

Bedford says New Zealand currently has the highest rate of new residency relative to its population in the OECD, approving 48,000 to 50,000 new residents per year – a figure equivalent to more than one percent of its population. But a key question is whether the people New Zealand gains are as educated and skilled as those it loses.

Researchers James Newell and Martin Perry found that New Zealand lost more degree-holding residents than it gained from migration between 1976 and 1991 and again from 1996 to 2001 – but gained from 1991 to 1996 and was expected to gain also from 2001 to 2006.

The net gains and losses are modest – a gain of 10,000 degree-holding residents through migration between 1991 and 1996, a loss of 10,000 in the following five-year period, and a projected gain of 5,000 in the five years ending in 2006.

Further research by the Ministry of Education suggests that the gain could continue or even increase because the number of emigrant degree-holders is expected to drop slightly, but the number of immigrants is hoped to hold steady or rise.

Victoria University research fellow Paul Callister says New Zealand certainly needs to aim for brain gain rather than brain exchange. He cautions that new migrants might take time adjusting to New Zealand with consequent losses in productivity, and some OECD nations are experiencing strong brain gain – they not only retain their own educated people, but attract those from other countries.

"If we are looking at brain exchange, we are still on the back foot with Canada and the US, so brain gain should be next on the list," Callister says.

Government efforts in this direction have begun to target the academic arena. It recently started to subsidise the study of foreign doctoral students, thus enabling them to be charged the same fees as New Zealanders, and introduced generous scholarships for top foreign students wishing to pursue a PhD in New Zealand.

In addition, the government this year and last year provided extra funding for universities specifically for staff pay rises. The funding was provided in recognition of the need to keep salaries in New Zealand universities competitive with those in other countries and provided pay rises of three percent for academic staff in each year which were further topped up by universities.

*John Gerritsen is editor of New Zealand Education Review.


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