A Study On The Pacific People In New Zealand(1945-2013)

As the fourth largest population group, Pacific people, who had come to New Zealand in a large quantity just only after World War II,has taken merely a period of less than seventy years to become such an important ethnic group in New Zealand. During the development history of the past seventy years, the immigration and emigration of the Pacific people is not only bound up with the economic development of New Zealand, but also closely linked to its immigration policy. Moreover,the mode of the South Pacific Island immigrants entering into New Zealand has also been limited by the relationship between their mother country and New zealand.The Pacific people is not only constituted by immigrants from the south pacific islands, but also pacific people born in New Zealand, whose proportion has already been up to 62.3% in 2013. In the almost-seventy-years development history, this group has already turned into a local population group dominated by the New Zealand- born pacific people from a foreign group, in which most are immigrants. Meanwhile, socioeconomic status and of this group has been improved and the gap from the national average level has already gradually been narrowed.The development and growth of the local pacific people don’t only hugely enhanced the socioeconomic status of the whole group, but also enormously influenced its ethnic identity. Due to the common life-history in New Zealand, they are prone to a same identity-- Pacific identity and pan-pacific appellation:Pacific people.