Dialogue: Let's all celebrate the great brain exchange

JACQUELINE LIDGARD* says that concern over the brain-drain overlooks the fact that a large proportion of migrants return after two or three years.

In the debate about young New Zealanders flocking overseas, there has been little comment about those who are returning. Yet since the early 1980s, return migration of New Zealanders - aged mainly in their late 20s - has been bringing back to the country more than 20,000 citizens each year.

Many of these young working-age people have tertiary education and work skills and are returning home after a temporary overseas experience.

They have been classified as migrants only because they were absent from New Zealand for 12 months or more. Thus, use of these figures to claim that large numbers of people are leaving the country to settle overseas can be misleading.

Although at least 20,000 New Zealanders have been returning each year, significant numbers are still overseas. A large pool of citizens living outside New Zealand (estimates are 600,000) means that even a small percentage returning may create a relatively large stream.

It is important to recognise and better understand these return flows of New Zealanders because they are outside the control of immigration authorities and are often overlooked when new policy is formulated. These people may return at any time. They will all need accommodation and most will need jobs.

New Zealand's immigration policy, by focusing attention on applications for residence in New Zealand, perpetuates a common misconception that Government policies play the key role in determining the volume of migration to New Zealand.

During the 1980s and 1990s immigration policy for much of that time had a direct influence on only half of the total "permanent and long-term" (PLT) migration into New Zealand.

This low level of direct Government control over international migration is mainly a result of the emigration and return migration of New Zealanders.

A survey of New Zealanders departing permanently for overseas destinations, conducted in October 1979 (following two years of record high outflows of New Zealanders), showed that barely 10 per cent said that under no circumstances would they return to New Zealand. The present numbers of New Zealanders departing PLT are approaching, but not yet at, these record levels of 1979 and 1980.

A question asked by probably all voluntary immigrants is whether they should return to their homeland. In March 1991, I conducted a national survey of returning New Zealanders.

My survey happened to coincide with the year that there was the largest net gain of New Zealand citizens in any year since the return of troops after the Second World War. Ironically, this occurred as the National Government extended the pro-active immigration programme of the previous Labour Government.

It appears from my survey and analysis of time series arrival and departure data over the past two decades that large outflows of New Zealanders are followed in two to three years by sizeable returns.

My study revealed that strong attachments to people and places in New Zealand played a significant role in the decisions made by New Zealanders to return "home." People listed family ties as the most important reason for choosing to return to their homeland permanently.

Despite the significance of these attachments, an economic dimension to their return also became important when migrants found that suitable employment was not as readily available as they had expected in their "home country."

Attachment to one's birthplace seems to be a universal sense in human experience. There is no place like home is a thought that has barely altered through the ages and appears to differ little from one culture to another.

Even though a large proportion of New Zealand migrants do return, a question many of the returnees were asking at the beginning of the 1990s was whether they should remain.

My survey found that some individuals were very positive about their decision to return, while others felt they had made a mistake and been lured back by memories which, once back, proved to be largely illusory.

Although many studies have tried to explain migration as a matter of individual decision-making, my research shows that the emigration and return migration of New Zealanders is strongly linked to the historical and structural relationships that evolved with the development of European capitalism in the South Pacific region.

In recent times, global competition for the young working-age group has enabled more young people than ever to become part of a labour force with transnational careers and multi-local lives. "Brain exchange" is a better description of this phenomenon than "brain-drain."

The debate, like New Zealand's international migration flows since the 1960s, appears to be cyclical. The only certainty is that at the beginning of the 21st century the potential exists for large uncontrolled flows of New Zealand citizens returning at any time.

A better understanding of the return migration pattern of New Zealanders would improve policy-making on the part of the Government as well as inform the emotive commentary of the past few weeks.

* Dr Jacqueline Lidgard is a research fellow working with the migration research group at the University of Waikato's department of geography.