A Migration Study of Cook Islanders

Abstract

THE PROBLEM Since the end of the Second World War , Cook Island Maoris have been migrating to New Zealand in small but ever increasing numbers.(1) Very little investigation or interpretation of this migration has been undertaken.(2) Little is known about the migration motivations of these people, the conditions of life they leave behind, or, despite their presence in our midst, the life that they find for themselves in New Zealand. At the time of the 1961 Census of New Zealand, more than 5000 Cook Island Maoris and Cook Island Maori-Europeans were in New Zealand, By 1964 their total numbers are estimated to have reached almost 7000. What proportion of these people are transient (i.e. in New Zealand for one or two years as labour migrants)? What proportion are permanent settlers here? How strong are ties with the Cook Islands ? How interdependent are the two communities ? This thesis is an attempt to describe and analyse the migration and the motivations of a small section of these migrants - the Aitutakians. (1) New Zealand population Census Vol. 7 1961 : II (2) See however Kay 1950, Hooper 1958