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A dearth of servants to perform domestic chores is making it difficult for some South African immigrants to adjust to New Zealand life, a Massey University study has found.
The research - by doctoral student Carina Meares - claims South Africans coming to this country struggle to make
the transition; from organising their professional lives without access to cheap domestic labour, to being forced into unskilled labour because their academic or professional status was not recognised.
Dr Meares interviewed a number of South Africans who settled in New Zealand between 1994 and 2001 for her thesis, entitled From Rainbow Nation to the Land of the Long White Cloud: Migration, Gender and Biography.
She focused on the impact migrating to New Zealand had on gender roles in marriage, parenting, domestic life and paid employment.
More than 41,000 South Africans live in New Zealand, according to the last Census, with about half of them on the North Shore.
One interviewee - who ran a business from home in her native country - said South African women had a different role as an abundance of servants meant they did not have to do "menial tasks".
That left them free to take up paid or unpaid work, or simply to socialise.
In New Zealand, where domestic labour was more expensive, many immigrant couples "not only have to cope with the practical and emotional challenges of settling themselves and their families ... they must also negotiate a new way of sharing the multiple responsibilities of paid and unpaid work".
Yet despite the economic and cultural problems - which could include long periods out of work - many couples, and families, became closer following the move, Dr Meares' research found. "Migration can cause enormous disruption to a migrant's life story. The kind of disruption it causes can differ for women and men, but that for all migrants it takes a great deal of courage and hard work to make a life for yourself somewhere new."
South African Michael Blythe, who has lived in New Zealand for about a month, said his family had had a full-time maid, two gardeners and a part-time cleaner.
"Doing my own laundry is a bit of a mission, you didn't really have to do it in South Africa. The maid would iron everything. Over here you just fold it neatly and hope it doesn't crease."
He said South Africa's high unemployment rate meant home-help was cheaper than in New Zealand.
But Milford resident Shari Hearne, who came to New Zealand from South Africa six years ago, said she had no difficulty adjusting.
"I don't think I agree. I've been working full time and I haven't needed a servant and I worked in South Africa and didn't have one. There might be a fallacy that all South African women or all South African families have a maid but that's not the case."
Ms Hearne, a librarian, said she knew many South African families that had settled well here.
