The trans-tasman gap

Bernard Hickey at Stuff has an excellent and informative blog post on the exodus to Australia, the net income gap and hiy it is not just about economics:

Behind every one of those 40,756 emigrants in the year to November there is a story. Many of these young, healthy, educated New Zealanders are leaving behind their family and friends. Sure, many will come back and some may actually be following their own families across the Tasman to recreate those networks of families and friends over there.

Often quietly, the Nanas and Grandads will be frustrated and pained. All that work to build a family and a future in New Zealand, then they miss out on the payoff: watching their grandkids growing up. They will cross their fingers and hope they come back.

Many of those who leave probably never imagine staying away. But they’ll get jobs and find partners and have kids and then do the hard calculations about whether it’s worth coming back. And then they won’t.

That’s because our economy is just not growing fast enough to increase wages to a level needed to tempt them back (or to just stop them from leaving in the first place).

Bernard also links to an NZIER excel calculator which calculates your net income in both Australia and NZ, and adjusts for stuff like ACC, WFF, medicare etc.  Useful.