KEY POINTS:
Single women in New Zealand are worse off than their Australian counterparts when it comes to finding "Mr Right" - and our man drought is now on a par with Mexico, claims an international demographer.
Australian author Bernard Salt said single women would soon start "geography dating," or using the internet to find "man dams", places with more available men.
Within a decade this "interactive targeting" of male hot spots could affect migration flows, he claimed.
Salt made headlines in Australia last week with a new book highlighting the man drought across the Tasman. But he said New Zealand had a bigger shortage of marriageable blokes.
"Young Kiwis in their mid- to late- 20s leave the country but it's mostly the women who come back," he said, adding the imbalance in New Zealand was similar to Mexico's.
"While Mexican men of that age are in America, Kiwi men are in Australia, London, Dubai."
He said research on expats indicated men were more likely than female counterparts to "go native" in a new country. Salt described the phenomenon as a "colonial trait," as Kiwis, especially men, sought to "test their mettle in a bigger market".
Salt has studied the sex ratios of single people across every village, town and city in Australia, with the results published in Man Drought.
The book concludes while there is a pronounced man drought in urban areas, the gender mismatch is often the opposite in rural locations.
In New Zealand, there is an abundance of men in some rural locations, such as Southland and the Mackenzie country. Salt said he was now planning to help Kiwis willing to move house for love, by conducting detailed research into singletons.
While Government statistics showed sex ratios of residents in different age groups, Salt's research went further, concentrating on those identifying themselves "single".
Salt was adamant our man drought was worse than Australia's, agreeing with a 2005 KPMG Population Growth Report that said a 32-year-old Kiwi woman had as much chance of finding a partner the same age as an 82-year-old.
"The reason being the 82-year-old men are dead, and the 32-year-old men aren't there," said Salt.
Latest Statistics New Zealand figures show there are 96,078 more women in New Zealand than men. But experts said women just had to know where to look - they couldn't go past the rural heartland.
Waikato University's professor Richard Beford, said Census figures weren't an accurate representation of sex ratios because men in their 30s were less likely to fill in the forms thanwomen.
Professor Ian Pool, also from Waikato University, has described "man drought" as a "fairly loaded term". It depended where you were looking, he told the Waikato Times.
"In metropolitan areas there has been a trend in recent decades that affluent women are moving to cities, are pursuing careers and putting off when they are going to settle down. Rural areas tend to be the opposite."
Statistics New Zealand sex ratio figures for last year show that for the 15-39 age group, the North Island had a relative lack of men compared with the South, and the Kapiti Coast the worst - with 89 men per 100 women.
Napier, Rotorua and Gisborne were towns lacking in men, while there were droughts of potential husbands in all major cities.
North Shore women had better prospects than the rest of Auckland - 99 men per 100 women - compared with 94 men per 100 women in Auckland City and Manukau.
Otorohonga had the highest ratio of males to females - 134 for every 100 women - and the Chatham Islands and Ruapehu District not far behind on 130 and 117.
But Statistics New Zealand's Denise McGregor warned women looking for love in those areas: "There is a big prison in Otorohanga full of men and it's a relatively small population. Likewise the Chathams is a tiny population. If too many single women head off there they may be disappointed."
There were military camps in Ruapehu and Selwyn districts, but Southland was an area overpopulated with males, as was Stewart Island, where organisers of a singles ball had complained publicly of a lack of women for the island's "lonely hearts".
McGregor said gender imbalance had existed for decades. In 1966 Census figures showed that there were 101 men for every 100 women, but by 2001 that figure had reduced to 95 men per 100 women.
But there is some good news for women looking for a man - over the past five years the problem hasn't got worse. 2006 Census figures show sex ratios have remained constant.
