Thursday 5 November 2009

Auckland and migration

Ask and ye shall receive: within two hours of my request to Stats NZ, I had an Excel sheet showing internal migration breakdowns by territorial authority. Thanks Ronald Mair!

I'm still puzzling out whether clean Tiebout hypotheses can be built given the rather strong confound of huge migration to Auckland from overseas. 17% of Auckland City's 2006 population resided overseas at the time of the 2001 Census; Auckland City drew 38% of all overseas migration to the greater Auckland region. So despite losing net 12,700 residents to other parts of greater Auckland, Auckland City still tied for top overall population growth in the Auckland region.

So, does Tiebout say Auckland City did poorly for on net losing so many prior residents to other parts of the region, or that it rocks for gaining so many from overseas? I suppose the answer will depend partially on whether housing prices went up or down relative to the region's average over the period as well. I have a couple years to ponder how to build the test though given that the next census isn't out 'till 2011.

Other fun facts:
  • On average across territorial authorities (districts and cities), 23% of folks resident moved to another district/city between the 2001 and 2006 censuses.

  • Only 13% of folks resident in Christchurch in 2001 left as of 2006, the smallest rate of out-migration of any of the regions. 36000 individuals left.

  • 31,407 people moved to Christchurch from overseas: 9.6% of the 2006 population. Susan and I were two of them!

  • A further 48,831 people moved to Christchurch from other parts of NZ. So a quarter of Christchurch's 2006 population did not live in Christchurch in 2001.

  • Paul Walker will be dismayed to find that 14,079 folks moved to Christchurch from the North Island (which he tends to view as being far worse than any other kind of foreigner). 12,027 left Christchurch for the North Island.

1 comment:

  1. That 13% figure can't be right. Nobody escapes Christchurch. They put Soma in the water and it never occurs to anyone to want to leave.

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