Our Home and Away Poll was conducted during June and July 2006. We asked how families keep in touch with other family members, especially those living overseas. We also asked what would be important to families if they were considering whether to move to another country.
Couch members were asked to select what would be the most important factors to them if they considered moving overseas. They nominated higher incomes, better work opportunities, warmer climates and the chance to live in another culture. However, when asked to choose only one factor, the chance to live in another culture was the leading choice for 207 Couch members followed by living closer to family and friends (197), and then earning a higher income (188). We found that about a third of Couch members who took part in this poll had, at some point, moved in order to live closer to family members. Thank you to the 1061 Couch members who completed this poll.
Most people responding to this poll felt that higher incomes, better work opportunities, a warmer climate and the chance to live in another culture would be the most important considerations if they were thinking about emigrating. Some Couch members also wrote to us to mention their spiritual/religious needs and personal safety as important considerations.
When asked to choose only one factor, the chance to live in another culture, the opportunity to live closer to family and friends, and higher incomes were rated as the most important. Higher incomes were more likely to be seen as the most important factor by those who had seriously considered moving countries. Whereas, those who had not seriously considered emigrating were more likely to rate the chance of living in another culture as the most important.
Three quarters of Couch members who took part in this poll have family living overseas.
Most people who responded to this poll use either email or phone calls as the most common way to stay in touch.
The family member living the furthest away lives overseas for 781 people, in another part of New Zealand for 236 people and in the same town/city for 29 people.
About a third of Couch members who answered this poll had, at some point, moved in order to live closer to family members.
Just over half of those who filled out the poll had seriously considered moving to the country they listed when asked where they would move if given the opportunity to emigrate.
Of those Couch members who have family living overseas, the places most commonly named were Australia (486), the United Kingdom [UK (155), England (191), Scotland (24), Great Britain (11), Wales (<10), and Northern Ireland (<10)], the United States (168), Canada (64), the Netherlands (35), Ireland (29), South Africa (29), and France (27). In all, 97 places were mentioned by the 815 people who answered this question.
Some of the less commonly mentioned places were Ethiopia, Gambia, Lesotho and Tunisia in Africa, the Cayman Islands, Bahamas and Dominican Republic in the Caribbean and Oman in the Middle East. The number of places mentioned by those with family members living overseas varied from one to 10, with most people naming one place.
When asked where they would live if they had the opportunity to live somewhere other than New Zealand, the most popular countries were Australia (429), the United Kingdom [the UK (69), England (75), Great Britain (<10), Scotland (<10), Wales (<10)], Canada (71), the United States (62), Italy (36), France (29) and Ireland (20). It seems that Couch members are feeling the cold this winter with 38 people saying they would move somewhere warmer or to a tropical or Pacific Island.
We were cheered to hear 58 people say they would not want to live anywhere else with sentiments such as: ‘After much travelling I would only ever want to live in NZ’, ‘I love NZ so never want to live anywhere else’, ‘Sorry, Aotearoa is fine’ and ‘I would never leave New Zealand – safest country in the world!’.
In all, 62 places were nominated as potential destinations. Some of the less commonly mentioned countries were Costa Rica, Mexico and Nicaragua in Central America, and Botswana, Tanzania, Togo and Zimbabwe in Africa.
This poll has given us a better understanding of our Couch members and the location of their more distant family members. Although New Zealand is geographically distant from most countries, it is clear that many of our Couch members have family living in a wide variety of places around the world. Many thanks to all our Couch members who took part in this poll.
