Economic Liberalisation and the Mobility of Minority Groups: Evidence from M?ori in New Zealand

Between 1984 and 2003, New Zealand undertook comprehensive market-oriented economic reforms. In this paper, we use Census data to examine how the internal mobility of M?ori compares to that of Europeans in New Zealand in the period after these reforms. It is often suggested that M?ori are less mobile than other ethnic groups because of attachment to particular geographical locations. If this were the case, M?ori may have been disadvantaged in the post-reform period because they were more likely to be living in adversely affected areas and less likely to move to pursue better employment opportunities. In contrast to the anecdotal evidence, we find that M?ori are more mobile on average than similar Europeans. However, M?ori who live in areas with strong networks of their iwi are slightly less mobile than Europeans. The difference between M?ori who live locally to their iwi and those who do not is even more pronounced when we consider responsiveness to local labour market shocks. Non-local M?ori are considerably more responsive to changes in economic opportunities than are Europeans, whereas local M?ori are almost entirely unresponsive.