Nettels are a subset of the traditional nuclear family - families with two full-time working parents aged between 30 and 49, with dependent children up to the age of 24 and a household income of $110,000 or more.
Australian demographer Bernard Salt says $110,000 is effectively what two full-time teachers,
nurses or policemen living together would make in Australia and New Zealand.
"It's hardly well-to-do - it's middle-class prosperity. For a husband, wife and two kids, comfortable middle class is certainly above $100,000."
Salt puts entry level at $130,000. If you want private schools, you need to be earning $200,000, and if you want to add a holiday house to that you need $250,000.
At present in Australia, Nettels comprise 5 per cent of families - but they are growing at 39 per cent every five years, or six times the average rate and Salt says this will continue.
"There's no reason to assume the trends in Australia are not equally evident in New Zealand and by the same proportions. One in 20 families is two parents flat out earning a reasonable income, but with not enough time to enjoy life."
Suburbs in Australia with the highest Nettel concentration are within 15 minutes of the CBD, with the hotspot being near Canberra's parliamentary centre.
Nettels don't like to be too far from work as they blend it with lifestyle. "In Auckland, it's Ponsonby and Parnell, and Wellington, like Canberra, is the hotspot, because the public sector is very supportive of females in the workplace."
The Herald on Sunday asked economist Gareth Kiernan of Infometrics to analyse New Zealand Census data within equivalent parameters.
He found Nettel concentrations were similarly in areas close to CBDs such as Auckland's Orakei, with hotspots around parliament including Wellington's Karori East, Whitby, Wadestown, Churton Park and Te Kainga.
In 2001, New Zealand had 38,800 couples earning more than $100,000 and with dependent children. By 2006, that was 70,900 - an 83 per cent growth rate, Kiernan says.
