New Zealand population bombshell: More Asian, less NZ European and how xenophobia could undermine potential of diversity

New Zealand has its head in the sand about how to manage dramatic changes to its population: fewer births, fewer workers, an emptying of rural centres and, within a few years, more Asians than New Zealand Europeans in Auckland.

That’s according to Sir Peter Gluckman and emeritus professor Paul Spoonley,... who spoke exclusively to the Herald about their new report People, Place and Prosperity: The Case for a Population Strategy.

“New Zealand now faces a pivotal decision regarding our demographic trajectory,” the report, released today by the Koi Tū Centre for Informed Futures, says.

“The colliding trends of slowing population growth and a reliance on immigration to drive workforce and population growth, an ageing population requiring more public services and growing ethnic diversity present both opportunities and challenges.”

Those opportunities include making the most of the skills, innovation and creativity that such diversity can offer, but this can be undermined by political populism appealing to xenophobic tendencies, the paper warns.

Ethnic diversity has already reached critical mass, no longer just arriving from abroad but now deeply embedded in communities – especially in Auckland, where the proportion of New Zealand Europeans is expected to dip below 50% in two to three years.

“In Auckland it’s particularly distinct in ways that will be fundamental to the way Auckland is perceived by itself, and how other parts of New Zealand perceive Auckland,” Gluckman, former chief science adviser to then Prime Minister Sir John Key, told the Herald.

But successive governments have failed to consider the whole demographic picture, he said, instead looking at issues such as immigration or infrastructure or workforce planning in isolation.

“You can’t look at this through the traditional political lens of turning on the migration tap here, turning it off here, what the superannuation age is or is not ... making xenophobic comments, as some political parties tend to make from time to time to drive populist vote appeal,” he said, declining to name the parties.

“Every part of public policy – be it infrastructure planning, economic planning, social planning, amenities planning – needs to take into account that the population is undergoing dramatic change.

“We can no longer afford to keep our head in the sand, the proverbial ostrich.”

Annual population growth dropped from 1.7% in 2023/24 to 0.7% in 2024/25, and is projected to remain below 1% in coming decades.

Spoonley said the total fertility rate (the average number of children a woman has over her lifetime) was at replacement level a decade ago, but last year it was 1.55 – the lowest it’s ever been.

“We’re seeing the impacts of declining fertility on our primary education, where the numbers in the primary schools between 2024 and 2034 will drop by nearly 37,000 [or by 7%],” he said.

“The numbers in our secondary schools will drop by 20,000 [or 6%]. That then translates at a later point into fewer workers.”

The labour force is forecast to shrink by an average of 4800 people per year from 2045. By then, Business New Zealand predicts a labour shortage of 250,000 people.

Efforts to reverse fertility trends overseas have failed as the change is mostly due to a shift in social norms. New Zealand will almost certainly follow comparable countries in having more deaths than births.

“At that point, immigration becomes super important, quite apart from providing labour and skills and talent,” Spoonley said.

“It becomes the key factor and perhaps the only factor that actually drives population growth. One of the questions we ask is: do we want population growth?”

It’s not the only lever when it comes to workforce strategy, he added.

“We’ve often opted for immigrants as a way of shoring up our labour force supply when in fact we should have been looking at other investments and productivity gains, including in technology.

“There are some areas where, if the answer is ‘immigration’, we’ve asked the wrong question.”

The population is also ageing, which is shrinking the proportion of workers relative to non-workers.

In the 1960s, there were seven people aged 15–64 (those who pay the most tax) for every person over 65; in 2025, it was four to one, and in 2065 it is forecast to be two to one.

Treasury and the Inland Revenue Department have long highlighted the extra squeeze this will put on already-tight government finances, and the potential ballooning of government debt in the absence of higher taxes, shrinking spending, or better balance sheet management.

By 2048, 22% of the population (and more than 30% in Tasman, Marlborough, Nelson and the West Coast) is forecast to be over 65 years old, up from 17% last year.

This will also exacerbate pressure on infrastructure in the retirement and aged care sectors, and on the health system.

Public health costs for those 65 and older are five times higher than for those under 65. The same ratio applies to those 85 and older, compared to those aged 60-64, according to Treasury.

“Healthcare patterns will also change because the demographic mix is changing,” Spoonley said.

“We know, for example, that Asians have much higher rates of diabetes and heart disease at younger ages than Europeans for biological reasons – nothing about their behaviour.

“That’s going to impact in the not-too-distant future, particularly in Auckland, in ways that the healthcare system’s not prepared for. Nobody thought about it 20 years ago, when the changes in population and immigration patterns started to be driven by policy changes.”

Between 2025 and 2043, the proportion of those who are New Zealand European is forecast to drop from 65% of the population to 55% (and to 45% in Auckland), while the proportion of Asians will rise from 21% to 31% (and to 42% in Auckland).

“Effectively half of Aucklanders are not born in New Zealand, and a large number of them are either East or South Asian migrants,” Gluckman said.

“This creates issues of how they integrate, get beyond ghetto-isation, how they relate to European New Zealanders who are effectively a minority in Auckland – if they’re not yet, they will be very soon.”

He said it was vital to have a long-term strategy for the changing face of Auckland, given “it’s the economic powerhouse of New Zealand; if Auckland fails, New Zealand fails”.

Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whītau Tūhono research shows net-positive attitudes towards Asian immigration, which have generally improved since 2018.

When large immigration populations are nourished, their greater mix of experience, skills, global connections and consumer demands can contribute to innovation, creativity and productivity boosts.

“One of New Zealand’s biggest assets internationally has been our social cohesion and the perception, fairly or unfairly, that we are not a racist country,” Gluckman said.

But this is fragile, especially in a modern media environment dominated by social media.

“It’s a sad reality that the nature of public discourse is now driven largely by social media. You’re seeing centrist politics now being displaced because the information environment gives attention to saying something either populist or extreme,” he said.

“The danger is when politicians, with this more aggressive rhetoric, which has been common in the political public square now, is that it can drive – not intentionally – changes in the public square that could undermine social cohesion.”

A social cohesion report from the Helen Clark Foundation last week noted declining immigration sentiment, mirroring global trends, though 67% of those surveyed still said multiculturalism is good for New Zealand, while 53% said migrant diversity makes New Zealand stronger.

Gluckman noted that popular nationalist movements overseas, based on anti-immigration, are mainly about “informal” or illegal immigrants, an issue that largely doesn’t apply in New Zealand.

Spoonley, who used to head the National Centre for Countering Violent Extremism, took issue with politicians demanding to turn away immigrants who don’t share New Zealand values.

“I’d really want to know what those values are and how we would screen people. Would they have ever screened out the Australian white supremacist who killed 51 people in Christchurch?”

He described the cohort of New Zealanders anxious about the diminishing share of New Zealand Europeans – forecast to drop below 50% by 2048 (and by 2028/9 in Auckland) – as “relatively limited”.

The potential for it to grow underlines the importance of investing in social cohesion, Spoonley said.

“Our earlier research shows that it takes around 12 years for a migrant to settle and be treated like somebody born in New Zealand with the same qualifications and experience.

“Canada invests a lot in making sure that immigrants adjust to Canadian society in terms of the labour market, in particular, but also upskilling employers to make use of immigrants in a more efficient way. There are major gains to be made, particularly around productivity, if we could be more efficient in helping migrants settle.”

That would also counter how migrant talent is underused. A 2023 Education Counts paper showed:

35% of those aged 25 to 64 in New Zealand were born overseas, more than twice the OECD average.

53% of them have a tertiary diploma or higher qualification, compared to 33% of New Zealand-born adults, the largest difference among all OECD countries.

Those with such a qualification are 3 percentage points less likely to be employed than their New Zealand-born equivalents. They also earn 15% less than New Zealand-born people with similar qualifications.

As foreign arrivals spiked in recent years, New Zealand has seen a rise in the number of New Zealand citizens moving offshore; 2024 saw the largest net migration loss of New Zealanders in 25 years, totalling roughly 44,000 people.

“If you look at the pre-Covid departures and what happened last year, there’s been a 74% increase in the numbers of New Zealand citizens departing and a 29% increase in the number of people emigrating, having arrived here as immigrants,” Spoonley said.

“It’s that churn of particularly young skilled people leaving to go to other countries.”

That didn’t necessarily mean there was a “brain drain”, as there is no data on whether they’ve returned, or plan to. Nor is there much of a strategy to lure them back, Spoonley said.

Gluckman said there was an appetite among those offshore to return to New Zealand.

“They have an emotional attachment to the country. But we’re not good at selling the New Zealand story to New Zealanders who are offshore and we’re not making the investments or the policy decisions that would attract them back to New Zealand.

“They need to see that they are not giving up on attributes they see overseas, particularly high employment, high reward, high wages, technologies, innovation.”

New Zealand is also slipping in its ability to attract the best of the best in an increasingly competitive global market.

Medical, teaching and technology sectors are already becoming more reliant on immigrants who, for example, made up 40% of the 5000 nurses employed in the aged-care sector.

New Zealand has dropped from 11th to 18th on the Global Talent Competitiveness Index in the decade since 2015.

Last year, we had scores below the “high income group” average in each of the index’s six pillars: enable, attract, grow, retain, vocational and technical skills, and generalist adaptive skills.

Population trends point to the hollowing-out of rural areas, which are ageing more rapidly than the national average, while growth is largely confined to Auckland, Hamilton, Christchurch and some outlier areas, including Queenstown Lakes.

“Two decades ago, internal migration was quite important for those rural areas – and that’s largely evaporated,” Spoonley said.

“Slow-growth areas are tipping over into stagnation or possibly depopulation – large parts of the central North Island, the West Coast of the South Island.

“The projections are that within two decades, three-quarters of New Zealanders will live in the top half of the North Island and 40% will be Auckland residents. The question is, is that desirable? Is that what we want as a country?”

Spoonley acknowledged efforts to boost the regions through initiatives such as Jobs for Nature or funding for regional or provincial development.

“But it often revolves around increasing the number of trees planted or trying to help particular parts of the economy, such as tourism. If you’re a young family wanting to go to a particular area, the job is important but so is the ability to access good healthcare, good education, the ability to go down the road and have a nice coffee,” he said.

“The implications for regions of this new demography are actually quite significant, and I’m not sure our politicians have addressed the infrastructure that’s required to retain people in those smaller centres.”

Gluckman asked whether it can even be addressed, or if, like the trend of having fewer babies, it’s a new social norm.

“Do we know enough about what the internal migration away from rural New Zealand, what are the factors that drive it [are]? Are there things that public policy can do? It’s not clear to me.

“The extent to which government policies can override cultural norms is actually very limited.”

So what would a cohesive, long-term population strategy that outlasted the three-year electoral cycle look like?

The paper, co-authored by Gluckman, Spoonley and Koi Tū fellow Georgia Lala, doesn’t try to answer that.

It makes the case for an independent population commission to consider public policy through a demographic and population lens.

“What frustrates me is that we know what’s happening and we know where we’re likely to go,” Spoonley said.

“Yet there seems a reluctance to engage with this new demographic reality, which will upend our social and economic policies, at a national level, and to plan for that very different demographic future.”

The commission could try to fill in data gaps and consider several elements of a population strategy including:

Societal resilience: intercultural capability, anti-discrimination and inclusion mechanisms.

Human capital and workforce, including making the most of overseas skills.

Infrastructure, including affordable housing, connected communities and support for the growing cohort of older people.

Social services, including adapting healthcare in response to an ageing population and growing ethnic diversity.

Aligning metro, provincial and rural needs with immigration settings and infrastructure planning.

Gluckman identified key challenges, including the short-termism that comes with a three-year election cycle, well-known government silos and the impact of social media algorithms, but these are not insurmountable.

“We have assets. We’re energy-rich. We are still very cohesive as a society. Diversity in general has been a strength,” he said.

“At the end of the day, the most common denominator is the people who live in New Zealand. If we don’t understand that and what it will look like, other policies inevitably will be flawed.

“That’s the guts of it.”

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/nzs-population-bombshell-more-asian-less-nz-european-and-how-xenophobia-could-undermine-the-potential-of-diversity/premium/2UPODMWXDRDJFDSOLDEIE26BN4/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5861258&forum_id=2...id.#49848373)

i rarely hear birdshits even bring up TFR, they just whine like this is an assault on their ppl, is ur women being only fans whores not maeking baby an assault too u benchods? it shld be faggot bitch bastard briyani

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5861258&forum_id=2...id.#49848375)

now thats 1.5, now do 1.2 or 1.0 or whateer birdshit whores are at now

📊 Results (New Zealand, TFR 1.5, no migration)

% Remaining % Lost Generations Years (~30y/gen)

75% 25% gone ~1.0 ~30 years

50% 50% gone ~2.1 ~63 years

25% 75% gone ~4.1 ~123 years

10% 90% gone ~6.8 ~204 years

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5861258&forum_id=2...id.#49848419)

📊 What happens to median age

Today:

Median age ≈ 38.4

After ~60–65 years under TFR 1.5:

👉 Typical outcome (based on similar low-fertility countries):

Median age ≈ 50–55

That’s a +12 to +17 year increase

👶👴 Age structure shift (approx)

Today (rough NZ-like structure)

0–14: ~19%

15–64: ~65%

65+: ~16%

After ~60 years (low fertility, no migration)

0–14: ~12% or less

15–64: ~50–55%

65+: ~30–35%

👉 The elderly share roughly doubles

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5861258&forum_id=2...id.#49848422)

they ardently want you dead and your children raped and killed, so it is 'self defense,' if that helps ease your conscience.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5861258&forum_id=2...id.#49848379)

The move is rhetorical as much as analytical. Public concern is reduced to 'xenophobia,' while mass immigration is treated as the default fix for aging populations and labor shortages, rather than one option among many. Alternatives—raising productivity, supporting family formation, or investing in the existing workforce—barely register.

The pace and scale of change are taken as given, and the real debate is narrowed to how best to administer it. Meanwhile, the trade-offs are softened or ignored: pressure on services, uneven economic outcomes, and the destruction of racial and social cohesion.

Calling for better management is not the same as making the case. If these shifts are as consequential as described, they warrant open argument about their obvious limitations—not just confidence that the right mix of policy and messaging will make them work.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5861258&forum_id=2...id.#49848443)