Public Address | Cafe | OnPoint: Brain Drain Et Cetera

Lucy Stewart

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 03:28:16 +1300

That being said, moving to London from Wellington was pretty easy and presented little dislocation, which rather surprised me.

British culture had a direct and very present influence on New Zealand culture right up until – well, the mid-twentieth century, in its most significant form, and it lingered. Plus we…

Ben Austin

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 22:46:04 +1300

I accept that without learning a language or absorbing a new culture, one has a pretty different immigration experience, but either are still pretty real and non trivial.

That being said, moving to London from Wellington was pretty easy and presented little dislocation, which rather surprised me.

Chris Waugh

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 22:12:44 +1300

Oh, yes. Out in Taiyuan many years ago I had an American colleague who could hardly understand a word I said because I spoke too fast, and a Japanese colleague who could understand me just fine because she'd lived in Australia for a year and so was familiar with a…

Islander

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 17:41:28 +1300

Jackie, I tautoko that point of view-

the first overseas country I went to was Hawai’i.
That’s when I learned that other Anglophonic people think we speak waaay too fast; that saying ‘whakapapa’ produced a visible shudder of horror through the -mainly (but definitely not wholly)- white audience, and my…

Jackie Clark

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:53:37 +1300

Now that's an interesting point, Hans. When I went to England, I thought it would be all tickety boo because, as you say, they spoke the same lingo. Except that they didn't. They had a different sense of humour, their accents were, though fascinating, often hard to decipher. When I…

Hans Versluys

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:47:44 +1300

I wouldn't call it "immigrating" or "emigrating" if you're going to a country that has your mother tongue. Real immigrants learn a different language.

Kumara Republic

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:50:51 +1300

Linguistically and culturally NZers can identify with these larger, more exciting, sometimes richer member states and sometimes easily immigrate.

And from past precedent, NZers moving to Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane/Perth seem to fill in for Aussies who've moved to even bigger cities like London or NYC or LAX.

Ben Austin

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 00:16:03 +1300

Indeed.

Perhaps also this is a disadvantage of being a minor member of the Anglophone community. Linguistically and culturally NZers can identify with these larger, more exciting, sometimes richer member states and sometimes easily immigrate. I'd imagine this has been the way since British colonisation.

It must be a much…

Kumara Republic

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 09:36:25 +1300

The principle reason seems to be, in our cases, that the UK would make for an interesting change, even if not intended to be a permanent move.

The big pond theory seems to come into play. London has that exclusive pedigree of being a former empire capital, and continually evolves…

Ben Austin

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 00:40:27 +1300

People don’t immigrate just for reasons of employment or wages though. I and most of my friends who migrated 04-07 left before the recession badly hit either NZ or the UK, when there were a fair amount of interesting and well paying jobs available in both countries.

The principle reason…

TracyMac

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 22:33:37 +1300

Hah, my sojourn in the UK from 1998 to 2003 exactly reflects the flip from net emigration there to net immigration here.

And with the hand-wringing about the "brain drain" from here to Oz, it's very rarely I see the fact mentioned it's often actually a LABOUR drain. A decent…

Keith Ng

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:46:42 +1300

My entry into NZ in 1990 is invisible in those charts. I came from Europe (not the UK) to steal your land, jobs and men.

Not from Germany, are you? Cos it's there, just obscured by the big blob from the UK.

merc

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:39:08 +1300

What's wrong with our women? ;-)

Hans Versluys

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 16:37:18 +1300

My entry into NZ in 1990 is invisible in those charts. I came from Europe (not the UK) to steal your land, jobs and men.

tussock

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:34:48 +1300

So, half the people stop leaving for Australia every time the government changes, with the government changing every time that peaks around 40k per annum. Notice what it's currently at? 40k per annum. Cool, might get a government change, certainly will next time if not.

Otherwise, got a lot of…

Lucy Stewart

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 14:20:38 +1300

As Tom Beard noted in an old blog post, NZ largely went from ‘rurality to suburbia without the urbanity in between’. There's a world of difference between a city and an overgrown small town, if they have the same populations.

I've solved the long-term temptations of overseas urban living by…

Kumara Republic

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:52:17 +1300

“Down-shifting” certainly has its attractions though, and when my half-Pakeha-half-Han family sat down to discuss where to educate our daughter, NZ’s low pressure/reasonable results education system won out easily over China’s high pressure/weak results system. I know we’re not the only family to think the same way. So for crying…

Chris Waugh

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:39:47 +1300

Wow, I'm one of 22 people aged between 20 and 24 to have moved to China in 1999, and one of 75 aged 25 to 29 to have made the same trip in 2002. I note the numbers are long term and permanent arrivals and departures, though, so my wife…

Rich of Observationz

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:11:34 +1300

It depends what you put on departure/arrival cards as to your intentions, right?

If you put that you're off on holiday for a few weeks, they don't count you as PLT,

Keith Ng

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:08:42 +1300

A lot of those Australian arrivals are kiwis. I get counted pretty much every time I cross the border.

True. But you actually *are* moving long-term every time, right? And you come back and forth, so you kinda balance yourself out.

Keith Ng

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:05:23 +1300

I noticed that the departures-to-Australia figure spikes and dips quite markedly over the years. Have you (or will you?) given any thought or analysis to what was happening around these spikes and dips? Is it world events, local policy, combination, something else?

My partner and I were talking about this…

Keith Ng

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 13:03:33 +1300

not area, but radius

Rookie mistake: Fixed.

George Darroch

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:47:59 +1300

A lot of those Australian arrivals are kiwis. I get counted pretty much every time I cross the border.

Juha Saarinen

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:27:48 +1300

Keith. You are a drain brain.

Keith Ng

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:25:26 +1300

not area, but radius

GAH! Can't believe I left that in there. Thanks for noting that...

Nat

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 10:19:25 +1300

You can't assume people are only going overseas because of student loans.

I definitely wasn't assuming that – I just thought it was interesting that there seemed to be such distinct spikes and dips and I am curious about what was going on at each of these. But maybe that's…

Kumara Republic

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:51:32 +1300

Young, educated people are always going to leave New Zealand. We are a country of four million people at the back end of nowhere. I love NZ, and I’m coming home when I’m done, but frankly if you have the opportunity to live overseas for at least a year or…

merc

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:15:12 +1300

I left NZ at 17. I studied at university at 36, our daughter is going to university next year. 11 billion dollars in back debt really scares me. How we pay for our daughter's studies is a very pressing issue.
Interest free student loans? I am not convinced. How to…

Lucy Stewart

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:09:37 +1300

So we bailed too big to fail companies, why don't we bail student loans?

You can't assume people are only going overseas because of student loans. Leaving aside the whole issue – which is one I do feel strongly needs fixing – and speaking as a university-educated person in her…

merc

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:45:07 +1300

So we bailed too big to fail companies, why don't we bail student loans?

Nat

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 07:36:24 +1300

I'm one of the 1,123 people aged 34-39 to come from Australia in 2009. I am the .1%, or something like that :-)

I noticed that the departures-to-Australia figure spikes and dips quite markedly over the years. Have you (or will you?) given any thought or analysis to what was…

linger

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:48:26 +1300

One problem with the Brain Grain graphs is that the “half-pie charts” for individual countries’ departures and arrivals show numbers of individuals using, not area, but radius, which is visually quite misleading: a “half-pie” representing twice the number looks four times larger.
(The line plot also available provides a better…

Public Address

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:48:26 +1300

Discussion from blog post.