If you're looking for love, location is key

If you are a bloke looking for a girl, shift to the Kapiti Coast north of Wellington because the ratio between the sexes favours males.

But women should head for Otorohanga, which has four never-married men for every female in the 25-34 age bracket. Otorohanga district had a population of only 9279 at the 2001 census, but they are likely to face much less competition. These are the findings of a study presented by KPMG partner Bernard Salt of Melbourne, who was in Auckland this week to talk to clients about demographic trends.

Having completed a statistical trawl of population figures, he has identified the best places for coupling up.

The 2001 census showed that New Zealand had more men who had never married in the 25-34 bracket than women, Salt said. Then, the country had 134,526 men in that bracket but only 121,671 women.

So he searched for areas where there was a substantially gender imbalance. The Kapiti Coast has three single females for every two males, he found.

New Zealand brides will have an average age of 40 by 2050 if they continue a trend started in 1971, says Mr Salt. Women married at 22 on average in 1971 but now marry at 30. A similar pattern is found in Australia.

Salt, author of a book on population trends, The Big Shift, found that Australians are heading from the bush to the beach, but New Zealanders are heading from the cities to the hills.

Rodney and Wanaka are population drawcards because they grew 3 per cent or more between 1986 and 2004, he found.

Areas losing population included South Waikato, Stratford, Kawerau, Wairoa and Rangitikei, he says, concluding that "winning themes there are suburbia, adventure and lifestyle and losing themes relate to dairy and timber."

Auckland has overtaken Adelaide as the fifth-largest city in Australasia, behind Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Based on the city's current rate of growth, Auckland will have more than 1.5 million people by 2018.

But in terms of its population size, Auckland is still only about the size of Memphis or Jacksonville in the United States, says Salt.

Auckland's population growth is fuelling an increasing division among New Zealanders, who are becoming a nation of "them and us".

"Only a quarter of your population lives in the South Island now, compared to a more even divide in 1901 when 47 per cent of you lived there."

www.thebigshift.com