Transfers of capital and shifts in New Zealand’s regional population distribution, 1840-1996

Abstract

When researchers attempt to study population and development, and particularly the role of migrations, the focus is normally on national level trends, frequently involving time-series analyses of more generic indicators of population change and economic growth. The migration field does, of course, deal with questions of the integration of migrants, at a macro-level evaluating their impact on social diversity and cohesion by turning to ecological-level indices covering clustering.

This paper takes a different approach in part inspired by the model developed by Le Heron, Britton and Parson to analyse a related question: restructuring. This they saw as likely to be induced and thus frequently exogenous to a particular socio-demographic system. For example, policies effecting restructuring at a regional level will often come from some central agency external to the region, or even outside the geographic territory or country. There are also other changes that can be spontaneous in nature, arising from a mix of factors and situations endogenous to a given area.1 In both cases, so these authors argue (1992:5), we must deal with “processes operating at various geographic scales...”.

To this end this paper thus employs as demographic variables indices plotting subnational changes, thereby recognising that population dynamics at the national-level are likely to be a composite of complex societal forces varying from region to region. For much of this essay, which is more an exercise in setting research agendas than a full-scale empirical analysis, the regional breakdown is very broad, attempting to distinguish between the more dominant and less dominant poles at any time.