New Zealand hit by ‘premature ageing’

New Zealand hit by ‘premature ageing’ says Waikato University demographer

New Zealand is suffering from ‘premature ageing’ and must take action to boost its workforce, warns Professor Natalie Jackson, the new director of the Centre for Population Studies at the University of Waikato.

An expert in regional demography, Professor Jackson says New Zealand has a substantial deficit of people aged 20 to 40 – mainly due to international migration loss -- which drives up the median age of the population.

“Crunch time is approaching with the number of retirees set to boom and fewer and fewer young people coming into the labour market,” she says. “The issues are huge because New Zealand is parked right next to Australia, which has an older population than New Zealand, and is like a vacuum sucking in Kiwi migrants.

“Also Europe’s population has stopped growing, and that region is highly interested in our skilled young people. And we can’t necessarily count on filling the gap with skilled migrants given the fierce international competition to attract these people. Related to that is the whole issue of getting more women into the workforce. We’ve made a good start in New Zealand, but there so much more we’ve got to do.”

Professor Jackson knows what she’s talking about. Originally from Te Puke in the Bay of Plenty, she did her first degree and Masters at Waikato before joining the exodus to Australia where she earned her PhD in demography at the Australian National University.

A former president of the Australian Population Association, she’s spent the last fifteen years in Australian universities researching the regional impacts of population ageing, alongside a second focus on the socio-demographic differentials between indigenous and non-indigenous people in Australia and New Zealand.

She has published extensively on these issues, and has acted as a consultant to local, state and federal policy-makers, particularly on the topic of the ageing population.

“One of my main contributions in Australia was getting people to understand that population ageing happens in different ways and has different implications for each region,” she says. “In Tasmania, where I was based, like New Zealand they’ve been losing young people.’ and when this happens you get an applecore shape in the demographic and it results in ‘premature ageing’.

“This has huge economic implications because it’s the young people who buy the houses and take out first mortgages, they’re the ones who have the children and they’re the ones who buy the whiteware.”

Professor Jackson says elsewhere you might get an influx of older retirees to the coast (“sun belt”) and a concentration of younger people with children in another area (“nappy valley”). “You need to understand the underlying structure and drivers of your population to make strategic and well-informed policy.”

Waikato’s Centre for Population Studies is working towards the goal of becoming a National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis (NIDEA) as part of the University’s strategic investment in research capacity building, and it's Professor Jackson's job to carry this initiative forward over the next two years.

She plans to develop the University’s research capabilities in the areas of regional demography, ethnicity and inequality, and what’s known as feminist demography -- which views the family as a political-economic entity producing the future labour force and tax payers, rather than having a solely domestic role.

“With fewer young people around to replace ageing baby boomers in the labour market, we’re going to need all hands on deck,” she says. “And it’s the family that generates these future workers and taxpayers. Australian figures estimate each child costs one million dollars, not only in costs but in foregone parental earnings. We need to recognise this economic contribution and see more investment in the family.”

ENDS

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