Migrant Demographic Characteristics

This section details the demographic characteristics of the migrants who responded to the survey. It provides an overview of the respondents’ nationalities, gender and age, as well as their application type and categories and, for principal applicants only, the criteria under which they were approved.

For details as to the representativeness of the achieved survey sample in relation to the eligible survey population, see Table 29 in Appendix E.

Demographics

In total, 601 migrants from 40 different countries participated in the 2007 SEFS. As with previous years’ surveys, the largest groups of migrants came from Great Britain (45 percent), followed by South Africa (11 percent), South Korea and China (both six percent) and India and the United States of America (both at four percent) (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Nationalities of migrants

Data Table for Figure 01

Total may not add to 100% due to rounding.

When viewed by region of origin (Table 1), 46 percent of the migrants who participated in the survey migrated from the United Kingdom/Ireland, 23 percent from ESANA, 22 percent from Asia and nine percent from Other regions.

Table 1: Migrant regions of origin

	Total		Principal		Secondary
	n	%	n	%	n	%
United Kingdom/Ireland	277	46	171	45	106	47
ESANA	138	23	83	22	55	25
Asia	132	22	88	23	44	20
Other	54	9	35	9	19	8
Total	601	100	377	100	224	100

Totals may not add to 100% due to rounding.

As detailed in Table 2, slightly more males than females responded to the survey, but their numbers are relatively proportional to the number of eligible males and females who were approved for residence in New Zealand between January 2006 and June 2006.

Of note, more than three-quarters (78 percent) of the respondents were aged 30 years and over.

Table 2: Migrant demographics

	n	%
Gender
Males	335	56
Females	266	44
Age groups
16-19 year olds	23	4
20-29 year olds	105	17
30-39 year olds	228	38
40-44 year olds	117	19
45-49 year olds	62	10
50 and over	66	11
Total	601	100

Totals may not add to 100% due to rounding.

Application and acceptance criteria

Over 60 percent of the migrants were principal applicants, reflecting their relative proportions in the eligible population of migrants who were accepted between January 2006 and June 2006.

In relation to their application type, the majority of principal applicants (87 percent) were approved under a residence criteria, with this most frequently being the Skilled Migrant Category (71 percent of the sub-sample), followed by the Entrepreneur Category (15 percent of the sub-sample).

A relatively small proportion of the respondents (13 percent) were approved under one of the Work to Residence criteria, with this most frequently being the Long Term Business Visa Category (39 percent of the sub-sample), followed by Talent (35 percent).

Table 3: Application and acceptance criteria

	n	%
Applicant
Principal applicants	377	63
Secondary applicants	224	37
Application type - principal applicants only
Residence	328	87
Work	49	13
Residence criteria - principal applicants only
Skilled Migrant	234	71
Entrepreneur	49	15
1995 General Skills	29	9
Investor	15	5
Talent (Accredited Employers)	1	*
Work to Residence criteria - principal applicants only
Long Term Business Visa (LTBV)	19	39
Talent (Accredited Employers) (Arts, Culture and Sports)	17	35
Long Term Skill Shortage List (LTSSL)	13	27

Totals may not add to 100% due to rounding.
* Percentages not calculated for counts of less than five.

There were no significant differences in relation to the above findings when viewed by gender or region of origin.

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