Maori - both on the move... and static

A friend sent through a newly released paper about Maori, mobility and economic liberalisation:

Between 1984 and 2003, New Zealand undertook comprehensive market-oriented economic reforms. In this paper, we use Census data to examine how the internal mobility of Māori compares to that of Europeans in New Zealand in the period after these reforms. It is often suggested that Māori are less mobile than other ethnic groups because of attachment to particular geographical locations. If this were the case, Māori may have been disadvantaged in the post-reform period because they were more likely to be living in adversely affected areas and less likely to move to pursue better employment opportunities. In contrast to the anecdotal evidence, we find that Māori are more mobile on average than similar Europeans. However, Māori who live in areas with strong networks of their iwi are slightly less mobile than Europeans. The difference between Māori who live locally to their iwi and those who do not is even more pronounced when we consider responsiveness to local labour market shocks. Non-local Māori are considerably more responsive to changes in economic opportunities than are Europeans, whereas local Māori are almost entirely unresponsive.

None of this surprised me.

Maori up sticks with more frequency and ease than Pakeha. While this paper covers "internal mobility" the large Maori population in Australia is tangible evidence of this willingness to follow the jobs (and other desired lifestyle factors).

But other Maori, connected to tribal homelands, or, let's be less romantic about it, who live in long-standing  uneconomic bases, but among whanau and iwi, are quite likely to increasingly rely on each other and the state - and to pool those resources - rather than endeavour to be part of the work force.

No disrespect to Urban Maori Authorities (whose intentions are worthy), but their development may have extended or exacerbated the combination of whanau/ iwi/state dependence into the city.