Population forecasts suggest that over the next 25 to 30 years Auckland may account for over 60 per cent of NZ population growth.Photo / Greg Bowker
Population forecasts suggest that over the next 25 to 30 years Auckland may account for over 60 per cent of NZ population growth.Photo / Greg Bowker
Some regions are at risk of ‘failing’ economically unless supported, a Salvation Army report warns. It says a divide looms: Auckland and the rest.
Some regions will "fail" economically and perhaps socially unless we help them to adjust, the Salvation Army says.
A major report by the army's social policy analyst Alan Johnson shows that most North Island provincial regions still have lower real incomes and higher youth unemployment than before the global financial crisis hit in 2008, while Auckland, Wellington and most of the South Island are doing much better.
North Island provincial areas such as Northland, Gisborne and the Bay of Plenty are faring worse even on apparently non-economic measures such as student educational achievement, child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, drug offences, burglaries and even accidents.
"There is strong evidence that several regions in New Zealand are slipping back and perhaps even slipping away from mainstream New Zealand," the report warns.
Population forecasts suggest that over the next 25 to 30 years Auckland may account for over 60 per cent of NZ population growth.Photo / Greg Bowker
It says the poorest regions are also at most risk from coming changes such as population ageing, climate change and scarce resources.
"A turning point might be reached where a choice has to be made to either assist these regions to adjust or allow them to fail economically and perhaps socially," it says.
The picture it paints is complicated. In some ways it points to "two New Zealands - Auckland and the rest".
"Population forecasts suggest that over the next 25 to 30 years Auckland may account for over 60 per cent of NZ population growth," it says.
"In general, Aucklanders will be younger, wealthier, better skilled and more ethnically diverse than the rest of NZ. Within such differences are the seeds for a growing divide in values and expectations."
Auckland's younger population creates an inbuilt force for growth with the highest proportion in the 15-64 working age group.
In contrast, the ageing population in regions such as Northland and Nelson-Tasman is slowing economic growth because retired people generally have lower, and either static or declining, incomes.
But on other measures such as jobs and the wellbeing of children and young people, the South Island is doing best, Auckland comes in only around the middle of the pack and provincial North Island regions are at the bottom.
Institute of Economic Research economist Shamubeel Eaqub, who warned last year that "zombie towns" were developing in the provinces, said he also found North Island provincial areas doing worst.
"In the South Island there's not a great deal of population growth but the people who live there generally have access to jobs and reasonable incomes," he said.
People & populations
Auckland's rapid population growth means it has the country's smallest percentage of people aged 65 and over - just 12.9 per cent last year, compared with a national average of 15.5 per cent and a high of 20.1 per cent in Tasman.
It has the lowest and slowest-rising median age, 34.6 years, compared with a fast-rising 45.1 years in the oldest region, Marlborough.
This is partly because 47 per cent of all immigrants in the decade to last year settled in Auckland. All other regions except Canterbury and Otago actually lost more migrants overseas than they gained in that 10-year period.
But natural population increase is also important. Because more Aucklanders are in the child-bearing ages and fewer are elderly, the region accounted for 46 per cent of the country's natural population increase.
Aucklanders are also much more ethnically diverse: 23 per cent Asian, 15 per cent Pacific and 11 per cent Maori. In contrast, 90 per cent of South Islanders are European.
Children & youth
Northland has the country's lowest rates of 4-year-olds in early childhood education and primary school students achieving national standards.
It also has the highest rates of students being stood down and expelled - in contrast to Gisborne, which recorded no expulsions in 2013 even though its educational achievement rates were similar.
"The chances of you being suspended or thrown out of school will vary from one place to another. In a small centrally administered country like New Zealand, it's hard to understand why we have those differences," said report author Alan Johnson.
Northland and the Bay of Plenty have the highest rates of substantiated child abuse and neglect. The South Island generally has the lowest rates.
Youth offending appears to be less linked to other problems. Northland, Gisborne and the Bay of Plenty are again among the five worst regions, but the highest youth offending rates are in Nelson-Marlborough-West Coast and Southland.
ACC figures show that rural areas generally have the worst accident rates.
"Northland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Gisborne are considerably more dangerous places to work than elsewhere in New Zealand," the report says.
"This higher incidence is perhaps due to a concentration of the forestry industry in these regions."
Domestic violence - measured by recorded assaults in dwellings - and burglary rates are both highest in Gisborne, Hawkes Bay and Northland. They are lowest in the South Island.
Illicit drug offence rates are highest in our most remote regions - Gisborne, Northland and Nelson-Marlborough-West Coast.
The report comments: "Perhaps this could be expected given that this is where cannabis is most likely to be cultivated."
The West Coast also has the highest number of non-casino pokie machines, and the highest spending on them, per person.
Work & income
The net result of all these factors is that jobs are hardest to find, and average incomes are lowest, in the provincial North Island.
Employment rates are now higher than pre-recession peaks in the South Island, with the highest in Canterbury (70.4 per cent of all adults aged 15-plus). But they are still below 2007 levels in all North Island regions except Wellington (up 1 per cent to 67.7) and Auckland (up 0.2 per cent to 64.7).
More than one in every five 20-24-year-olds are not in jobs, education or training in all North Island regions except Auckland, Wellington and Taranaki. The worst rate in that group is 26.8 per cent in Northland, more than three times the best rate of 7.7 per cent in Otago.
Median household incomes are also best in Otago ($1735 a week) and worst in Northland ($1100). They have also risen fastest in real terms in Otago (up 17 per cent since 2007), and have fallen furthest in Northland (down 10 per cent).
