Expats support poor NZ

Family and friends abroad are padding Kiwi wallets with money transfers. Photo / Thinkstock

Cash-strapped Kiwis are being sent money from friends and family overseas to help make ends meet.

A new survey by expatriate organisation Kea shows that almost a quarter of New Zealander respondents living overseas send financial support to family or friends at home.

The figure is based on the responses of about 7000 to Kea's "Every Kiwi Counts" census of New Zealanders abroad.

The results were worrying, according to an academic who designed the survey.

Paul Callister, from Victoria University's Institute of Policy Studies, which designed the five-yearly survey, said the economic downturn had prompted them to ask about remittances, or sending money home, for the first time. And the results took organisers by surprise.

"I think it's really interesting, and kind of worrying in one sense.

"We have a view that we're an industrial country, and the research has been basically [on] remittances to places like Tonga and Samoa."

Sending money home to help out is usually something associated with Polynesian New Zealanders transferring cash to families in the islands.

Economists said nearly $300 million was sent back to friends and families in New Zealand in the three months to December.

Callister's survey did not reveal how much was being remitted, where it was coming from or why, so more research was needed.

Nearly four out of five of those surveyed had tertiary qualifications - and were therefore likely to be well paid.

Also, a lot of Kiwis had been overseas for a long time and had good jobs.

Families were smaller and there may have been no siblings left in New Zealand, so one scenario might be money being sent back to support ageing parents, he said.

Westpac economist Dominick Stephens said inward transfers to New Zealand, which included flows of funds from migrants, were a tiny part of the economy.

There were inflows of $293 million in the December quarter, compared with exports worth $11,347 million.

However, it was interesting to note that remittances did not only go one way.

"It's a good point that on net we're probably not exporting remittances necessarily."

Northland man Lau Saili has lived in London for the past two years where he is a policy analyst for the International Hydropower Association.

He helped family back home every now and then, he said.

"It's usually we get to a point where some crisis pops up, or an event comes up like a wedding.

"It's not something I do on a regular basis but it does happen."

He also had property and other financial commitments at home so "to me it's like a whole package".

"You don't think about it."

Kiwis overseas who would like to take part in the survey can do so at www.everykiwicounts.com