What does it mean to be a Kiwi?

Put simply, it means being one of the 3.85 million people who live in New Zealand and the thousands of others who live overseas but still consider themselves New Zealanders.

But such a simple definition of identity does not reflect this country's diversity - in its people, cultural makeup, living circumstances and location.

The only constant is change, it is said, and NZ society has undergone many changes in its short history.

Our population has grown rapidly over the past century, from one million in 1908.

At the present rate of growth NZ will have 4 million people within the next five years and grow to a peak of 4.64 million in 2044.

That sounds like a lot of people, but NZ is tiny when you consider that about 17 million people live in New York and 10 million people live in London.

Our size and location in the world has helped to form what we are as a nation, but NZ is now faced with finding its place in a changing world.

We are now, more than ever, part of a interconnected world, brought together by new communication technologies, faster and easier travel and economic globalisation.

Many of the countries that have prospered in this new age have benefited from utilising the accumulated knowledge of their society.

To get NZ into a position where we can benefit from the knowledge of our society, the country faces various challenges.

Background papers to the recent Knowledge Wave conference identified an important concept called social cohesion.

Simply put, it is an "ongoing process of developing a community of shared values, shared challenges and equal opportunity, based on a sense of trust, hope and reciprocity."

That is, a society that can pull together as one.

The papers said NZ's social cohesion had been affected by the economic changes of the past.

We have an ageing population as our population growth slows.

Over the next 100 years the number of children under 15 will decrease by almost one-quarter.

This will mean fewer people moving through our educational facilities and into the workforce and more people retiring.

Modern NZ society is also very diverse ethnically.

Until 200 years ago, NZ was a largely Polynesian country, but since then the population has changed significantly.

At the last census, 71.7 per cent of New Zealanders were of European origin, 14.5 per cent were Maori and Pacific Islanders made up 4.8 per cent.

As the birth rate of European-New Zealanders drops, the percentage of other ethnic groups in society grows.

Maori are projected to comprise 21 per cent of the NZ population by 2051, at which time Maori children will make up one-third of all New Zealanders under 15.

The percentage of Polynesian people in the population will rise from 6 per cent to 13 per cent in 50 years.

The fourth most common ethnic group, Asian people, will continue to grow from 4.4 per cent in 1996 to 9 per cent in 2010.

Households numbers are growing as the population grows, increasing from 1.29 million in 1996 and peaking, as the population does, in 2044 at 1.83 million.

Couples living with children are the most common family type in NZ, but several ethnic groups have a significant proportion of one-parent families.

More than one-quarter of all Maori, Cook Islanders and Niueans live in one-parent families.

One-family households are the most-common type.

Transforming NZ's economy into one based on knowledge industries that compete on a global stage will not be easy, but will have benefits for the country.

As Shalema Witten-Hannah says in the conference theme papers:

"The pressure for NZ to rapidly make the transition to a knowledge society stems from a notion that doing so will enable us to maintain, and hopefully improve upon, the current quality of life of most members of NZ society."

Professor Dame Anne Salmond says: "The knowledge economy is made of bright people who have got creative ideas and so you have to make sure the younger generation wants to be here.

"It's a very big issue for NZ."

In order to take advantage of these bright and creative young people, education is the key.

"There has to be a base level of literacy, e-literacy and numeracy right across the country," Professor Salmond says.

Without this education base, some people will fall behind, causing inequalities.

The knowledge wave must therefore occur at all levels of NZ society.

Beyond education, young people also need the confidence that NZ is a place where they can achieve their goals. If opportunity exists here bright young New Zealanders are less likely to leave.

How we respond to these challenges will shape what we are as a nation and what it means to be a kiwi in the 21st century. But more than ever, we have the power to shape our destiny.

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