Transnationalism in Aotearoa New Zealand: Initial Data Assembly

New Zealand is characterised by very high levels of inward and outward migration, both temporary and permanent. These population movements have important fiscal consequences, as illustrated in the Treasury’s recent long-term fiscal statement. Net migration affects fiscal aggregates, and transnational population movements affect how the costs and benefits of public finances are distributed between people. This paper describes the development of a population dataset that captures these movements in and out of the country. The ambition is to attach fiscal information to the population dataset in future, to help understand longitudinal patterns of expenditure and revenue among different cohorts of people such as temporary or permanent migrants, New Zealand emigrants and returning New Zealanders. The New Zealand population is typically estimated as a ‘stock’ concept as at a point in time. But fiscal analysis usually focuses on flows of revenue and expenditure over periods of time such as a year. This paper thus develops a ‘flow’ concept of population. The focus is on the number of days someone is in the country in a year. Even if someone is not part of the ‘usual’ population, for the time they are present in the country they will have an impact on fiscal aggregates. On the revenue side, they will contribute GST, at least, and perhaps income tax as well. And on the expenditure side, more people means more pressure on infrastructure and social services. I describe the population dataset as capturing a ‘transnational’ population, in contrast to the typical ‘resident’ population. This term transnationalism refers to both long-term immigration into and emigration out of New Zealand. It also refers to onward migration of immigrants to other countries, return migration of emigrants (after an OE, say) and diverse patterns of temporary work, residence or study. This note reflects the analytical structure used to build up the population dataset. I start by defining physical presence in the country. In the second stage I develop a definition of residence, then add information about the legal basis for presence in the country. In the final stage I use this information to develop and apply a set of transnational states. The final section illustrates the analytical possibilities of the data by showing transitions between different transnational states for different cohorts of students arriving in New Zealand, showing that many go on to become temporary workers and then residents.