Distribution of the population
5 million inhabitants, that's not much! During the Covid-19 pandemic, we often heard talk of "the team of 5 million", a term used to emphasize the collective effort involved in fighting the epidemic. And indeed, if you spend a little time in the country, you can feel the "team of 5 million" aspect. If you travel a little, you'll quickly come to "know someone who knows someone who...". New Zealand is a bit like a big village.
A big village in which there are several big cities.
The largest of these is Auckland, with 1.6 million inhabitants, i.e. almost a third of the country's total population!
On the North Island, the other big city is Wellington, the capital, with 200,000 inhabitants. The figure rises to 500,000 if we speak of "Greater Wellington", including the communes and districts of the nearby region.
On the South Island, Christchurch is well ahead with 370,000 inhabitants, far ahead of Dunedin and its 126,000 inhabitants. The North Island is therefore much more densely populated than the South Island, with more than three quarters of the population spread across the cities of Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton and Tauranga. On the South Island, the main urban areas are Christchurch and Dunedin. For the country as a whole, over 80% of the population lives in urban areas, compared with 16.5% in rural areas.
A common joke in New Zealand is to compare the number of inhabitants with the number of sheep in the country. Once upon a time, the sheep population numbered 70 million, or 22 sheep per inhabitant! A comical figure, so present in the minds of New Zealanders that a certain Jonathan King turned it into a humorous horror film, "Black Sheep", in which a handful of farmers confront a horde of zombie sheep.
Rest assured, today the ratio has dropped to 6 sheep per inhabitant, and none of them show any sign of cellular degeneration.
Demographic profile
The latest census (2018) estimates that Pākehā (non-Māori of European descent) make up 70% of the population, compared with 16.5% Māori. The remaining 13.5% represent Asian - mainly Chinese and Indian - and Pasifika (the term used for Pacific Islanders) populations. The country's population is 49% male and 51% female, and life expectancy is 79.9 years for men and 83.4 years for women. The average age is around 40, indicating that New Zealand is suffering from the effects of the baby boom of the 1950s; the average age in 1975 was 25. An aging population, therefore, with a fertility rate that is currently too low to ensure population renewal.
In 2020, the fertility rate fell to 1.6 children per woman. Over the last 10 years, it has fallen by 20%, which worries statisticians and demographers, as the ideal rate to ensure population renewal is 2.1 children per woman. In recent decades, immigration has been an important factor in rejuvenating the population.
Māori and Pasifikas
The Māori, descendants of the Polynesian explorers who first occupied the New Zealand islands, now account for just 16.5% of the population. Although the Māori population declined drastically after the first contacts with Europeans (contact with new diseases, turf wars...), this low figure is mainly explained by the massive arrival of European settlers after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi (attaching New Zealand to the British crown), placing the Māori at a numerical disadvantage.
Māori culture, however, is undergoing a renaissance, and its people are increasingly valued and represented in all spheres of society.
Culturally, the Māori belong to iwi or hapu (tribe or sub-tribe), and still mostly live in communities. The largest communities are located on the North Island, in the Rotorua and Bay of Islands regions.
The country also boasts a sizeable number of Pacific Islanders. Known as "Pasifikas" (a contraction of "Pacific islanders"), these people are also descendants of the great Polynesian migrations in the Pacific, and have also had to contend with the great Western colonial powers. This cultural proximity gives the Pasifikas a status and consideration similar to that accorded to the Māori, in both good and bad ways: despite policies to promote Pacific cultures, these populations are still victims of a certain form of latent racism on the part of certain sections of the Pākehā population.
Immigration policies
Immigration has always played an important role in the evolution of the population, and therefore of cultural identity. Policies have evolved over time, adapting to settlement objectives and labor needs.
In the early decades, settlers were predominantly British, in order to guarantee "cultural homogeneity". However, certain events saw this principle relaxed, to allow the development of certain industries. This was the case with the gold rushes between 1858 and 1880, which saw the arrival of the first Chinese migrants, who formed sizeable communities, notably in Arrowtown and in the Longwood forest, near Riverton.
The first half of the twentieth century, with the major economic crisis of the 1930s preceded and followed by two world wars, was not favorable to immigration.
Between 1947 and 1975, however, the country introduced a policy of assisted immigration to encourage families and individuals to settle in New Zealand. Initially strictly reserved for British citizens, these policies were later extended to a number of European countries (Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, Greece...)
At the same time, policies to welcome foreign students were put in place, notably for Asian populations, marking the end of exclusively white immigration. Malaysians, Thais and Indonesians also entered the country.
By the early 1970s, the proportion of New Zealanders born outside the Commonwealth was 30%, double that of 20 years earlier.
At the end of the 1990s, the country launched refugee policies and welcomed people from Iran, Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan, adding to its cultural diversity.
Today (and since the late 1980s), New Zealand practices a policy of selective immigration, mainly based on labor needs. There is a list of skills that the country lacks, and immigration is made immensely easier for people of all nationalities with these skills.
One of the reasons for this need for foreign workers is New Zealand's difficulty in retaining its own citizens. Many New Zealanders choose to leave the country and settle overseas. Among the reasons given are more attractive salaries, a more favorable property market or, quite simply, the desire to discover a new environment and escape the isolation of the Pacific.
Finally, let's not forget to mention the "temporary populations" that the tourism industry brings in! From 2015 to 2019, the country welcomed over 3 million tourists a year, more than half its population! The pandemic obviously caused these figures to plummet from 2019 to 2021, but tourism picked up again in similar proportions as soon as the borders reopened.
Languages spoken in Aotearoa
New Zealand has three official languages: English, te reo māori, and New Zealand Sign Language.
English is spoken with a strong accent in which the "e" and "i" merge (e.g. "pen" becomes "pin"), and there are of course a few local locutions. Among the most common:
Sweet as. Used in response to a proposal or the announcement of good news, it conveys a very relaxed form of enthusiasm. "Are we going to the beach this afternoon? - "Sweet as! - yeah! - "I got the job! - Sweet as! - Congratulations!
Yeah, nah. Again, a very relaxed way of saying no without sounding too abrupt. Mind you, if you add a "yeah" afterwards ("yeah nah yeah"), it probably means yes after all.
Yeah right. A sarcastic way of expressing disagreement. Equivalent to our "Oui bien sûr!" or "Ouais genre".
Ta (with a long "a"). A friendly, informal "thank you".
Jafa. Acronym for "Just another fu*king Aucklander" - yes, we like to hate people from the capital here too.
Tramping. To hike. "Hiking is another word for it, but in New Zealand it's all about tramping.
Dairy. Small local supermarket, which at one time sold only dairy products. A local institution!
Eh / Aye. Used to punctuate the end of sentences, a bit like our "hein". "Nice aye?" - "Not bad eh!"
New Zealand English is also increasingly punctuated by words borrowed from Māori, such as the unavoidable "Kia ora", all at once "hello", "thank you" and "good luck".
Other very common words you're likely to see here and there:
Greetings. Tenā koe: a more formal hello. Note: if addressing two people, say "Tenā kōrua" or "Kia ora korua", and "Tenā koutou" or "Kia ora koutou" if addressing more than two people. Morenā: good morning in the morning. Ka kite (anō) : goodbye, see you soon
Family. Whānau: extended family, or community. Tāne: man. Wahine: woman. Tamariki: child.
Other common words. Koha: gift, donation. Whenua: the earth. Moana: ocean. Kai: food. Korero: conversation. Aroha: love.
You may notice differences in agreement when using māori words in the books. In te reo, the plural and feminine are carried by articles only, and there is no noun or adjective agreement. In English, therefore, it's seen as respectful to regard māori words as invariable. There's no real consensus in French on this question, so we'll see two biases: māori words sometimes used invariably, and other times used "à la française", i.e. with agreement in gender and number.
