New Zealand’s towns and cities are rapidly becoming ‘hyper-aged’, which will have far-reaching consequences for society and the economy. Population projections show it won’t affect all areas equally, and those most impacted will have difficult decisions to make. Charlie Mitchell reports.

This story was first published on Stuff. 

In the early 1990s, the coastal town of Thames crossed an important threshold. It became “hyper-aged”.

Hyper-aged is an unusual term – and might even sound derogatory – but it’s a technical description for any population where the proportion of people aged-65+ is more than 20%.

When Thames crossed this point, it was forging a path many others would follow. In 1996, the Kāpiti Coast became the first hyper-aged territorial authority (TA). A decade later, it was joined by Horowhenua and Waimate.

In 2018, the hyper-aged ranks swelled to 18. This year, they numbered 34. Projections suggest that, in 2048, only three TAs will not be hyper-aged, and even they will be very close to it.

It might seem counter-intuitive.

New Zealand has been one of the faster-growing countries in the developed world. Our population has grown by more than one-third since 1996, and is expected to keep growing for at least another 50 years, likely peaking short of 7 million near the end of the century.

But the spoils of that growth have not been shared equally; much of that growth has been in a handful of cities. It hides a phenomenon affecting many small and medium-sized towns, one that is broadening quickly.

Although New Zealand is still growing, it is structurally ageing. Fertility rates have dropped steadily and humans are living longer. Mathematically, this means the proportion of young people is shrinking, while the proportion of older people is growing.

This is happening in every community in the country. Every TA is structurally ageing; none are going in the other direction.

Structural ageing is – for now – less of an issue in cities like Auckland, Hamilton, and Wellington, where many younger people are concentrated. It is far more problematic in small and medium-sized towns like Thames.

When a population is heavily weighted towards older age groups, natural increase – when there are more births than deaths – slows down, and eventually declines. Once natural decrease sets in, it is almost impossible to reverse, and depopulation usually follows.

“Around the time a population passes 20% aged 65+ years, it shifts from having natural increase to natural decrease,” says Dr Natalie Jackson, an independent demographer and a former professor of demography at Massey University, who has led significant projects on population ageing in New Zealand.

“This shift can happen even earlier, but as a general rule, that’s the inflection point. The issue is simply that older people don’t have children – and once you have 20% over the age of 65 you have relatively low proportions in the childbearing ages.”

Depopulation is not immediate; a community can keep growing, even when it is naturally decreasing. This is happening in Thames, which is still increasing its population. The reason is migration – enough people are moving there that it balances those who are dying or leaving.

It’s a double-edged sword. Most of its migrants are older – Thames is a nice place to retire – so they are adding to the population, but in a way that entrenches the hyper-aged structure.

Once this dynamic is locked in, the future becomes predictable. Population projections suggest that, in 2048, the population of Thames could be nearly 50% retirement-aged. For every person that is born, another three would die. More residents would be older than 85 than younger than 15.

A community with an age structure like this must fundamentally change. In Japan, where many communities are in the grip of hyper-ageing, the result has been ghost towns.

Fewer children mean less need for schools; more retirees mean a higher need for aged care and medical facilities. In shrinking towns, roads are left to become gravel; pipes are ripped up. Houses are left vacant, and businesses have to close. Aotearoa isn’t there yet, but “we’re all tracking the same path”, Jackson says.

“Depopulation will be experienced widely as population ageing progresses,” she says. “New Zealand is no different to Europe, Japan, etc, where depopulation is now widespread both subnationally and nationally.”

Growing cities and shrinking towns

Twenty-five years from now, the shape of our communities is likely to be different. Population projections by Stats NZ to 2048 show what that might look like – and they reinforce the powerful impact of structural ageing.

For the most part, existing cities are expected to become larger through peri-urbanisation: the expansion of the city into areas that were traditionally rural.

Whenuapai in northwest Auckland today has a few thousand residents, but in 2048, it is projected to be more populated than the entire West Coast region. Wairakei, a suburb of Tauranga, would alone be larger than nearly a third of TAs.

Rolleston and Lincoln, west of Christchurch, are projected to have a combined population of 50,000 – enough to be declared a city. Hamilton would be on the cusp of overtaking Wellington as the third-most populated city; one of its suburbs, the today barely populated Peacocke, would be larger than Gore.

Then there is the flip side. Westport would continue its downward trajectory, becoming significantly smaller than it was a century ago. Numerous small towns – Te Kuiti, Taumarunui, Gore, Mataura, Reefton, Patea, Ngapuke, and others – would be shrinking every year.

The figures are projections, and projections are not destiny. Future population size is notoriously difficult to estimate: Migration flows are volatile, and add uncertainty to any population projection. The fate of smaller areas, in particular, are highly uncertain.

What is predictable is ageing. Time is linear, after all – every 365 days, every living person ages one year.

How fast are we hyper-ageing?

The trend is happening faster than one might expect.

There’s a measure similar to hyper-ageing called the “elderly-child ratio”. Does a community have more elderly people (65+) than children (0-14)? In 1996, none of the 67 TAs in New Zealand met that criteria. As noted above, today, two-thirds of them do. In another 25 years, all TAs are projected to have more elderly than children.

For an individual community, this rapid shift in age structure can happen in a single generation.

In the late 1970s, children were the largest age group in the small town of Ngatea, on the Hauraki Plains. For every retirement-aged person, there were at least four people younger than 15.

What happened next is a common experience in small-town New Zealand: Age-selective migration. Young people left the town for larger cities, taking their reproductive capacity with them. While some would have come back, and others arrived to fill their place, the number of 15-39 year olds in Ngatea is proportionally lower than it was 40 years ago.

While this happened, older people were moving to Ngatea. It is common for older people to leave cities for medium-sized towns, which – like a double whammy – adds to the ageing impact of younger people going in the opposite direction.

This is why migration, in most cases, makes communities older, not younger. One paper exploring this phenomenon found that, between 1976 and 2013, the vast majority of places in New Zealand were made older by migration, contrary to conventional wisdom.

For Ngatea, the structural ageing trajectory was locked in long ago. In 2003, it became hyper-aged. Soon afterwards, it had more elderly residents than children. Today, deaths are equal to births, meaning natural decline is imminent. In the next couple of decades, Ngatea is projected to be depopulating.

Only a handful of TAs are currently experiencing natural decline, according to population estimates – they are Thames-Coromandel, Horowhenua, Kāpiti Coast, Buller, Timaru, and Gore.

That will change quickly. Projections suggest that number will increase to 22 in the next decade. For the first time, cities will be among them – Napier, Nelson, Dunedin, Invercargill.

In 2048, natural decline is expected to be underway in 45 TAs, including medium and large-sized towns such as Whangārei, Masterton, Whanganui, New Plymouth, and Upper Hutt.

Some communities will be losing hundreds of people every year solely through natural attrition, which will only increase over time. To stave off depopulation, they would need to acquire an increasingly large number of migrants to fill the shortfall.

What can be done?

In most cases, structural ageing cannot be reversed. Once natural decrease sets in, the only way to increase the population is through migration – either national or international.

Research suggests the level of migration required to balance natural decline is unrealistic, and that “even extremely high migration levels would have only minimal impact” on the proportion of the 65+ population.

Another problem is that migrants themselves get older, which adds to structural ageing. Maintaining a balance would require an exponential increase in migrant numbers over time. Councils can try to encourage residents of other areas to relocate, but many communities will be in the same position – they’ll be competing with each other for a dwindling proportion of younger people.

It is more likely that communities dealing with structural ageing will have to face the issue head-on, and accept that growth – economically and population-wise – may no longer happen.

Dr Michael Cameron, an associate professor of economics at the University of Waikato, says there is little a community can do to prevent natural decline. It can try to attract migrants, but that is also a challenge. “Many TAs have economic development agencies that have been set up to try and attract business activity (and population),” he says.

“It isn’t clear how successful those initiatives have been, or whether they are net positive in a cost-benefit sense. However, it is difficult for councils to try and opt-out of this competition, because perhaps it sends the wrong signal that they aren’t trying to develop.”

Communities facing structural ageing would need to make sure they have the right mix of social and built infrastructure for a future, older population. They may also need to reconsider the approach to growth they’ve previously taken.

Natalie Jackson, the demographer, lives in the Thames-Coromandel District, which is at the forefront of these challenges. The structural ageing process is almost impossible to undo, she says. It is something communities like hers need to accept.

“Reversal’s just not going to happen,” she says. “What does need to happen is to stop thinking this is some sort of temporary issue, and start putting services where the demand is.”

A day in the life of Thames

Nestled between the gold-veined hills of the lower Coromandel and the brackish water of the eponymous firth, is Thames. The historic main drag, Pollen St, is replete with an independent bookshop, a hardware shop and lively eateries with furniture splayed across a double-wide footpath.

The footpath is double-wide for a reason. It is gradually being enlarged to make room for passing mobility scooters – a common sight on Thames streets.

Phil and Joan Hankins say Thames is the best place in the country to live. “It has everything we need, from hospitals to insurance.” The couple that moved south from Auckland says, although the town has a “slack pace” it’s got everything they desire.

Outside Carson’s bookshop, Alastair Stevenson is browsing a rack of discounted books. Stevenson moved to the town “literally the day after I retired”.

The former lecturer of marine and mechanical engineering says the town has more or less everything he needs. One crucial missing element, though, is a cinema. There used to be one when Stevenson and partner Hazel first moved to the town, but Covid drew the curtains on the 108-year-old theatre after a downturn in patronage.

“I used to go to the Embassy a lot,” says Hazel, “but I think in the end it just wasn’t patronised sufficiently.”

Part of the problem was the showing times, she thinks. ”Lots of the films were screened too late in the day. Not many people here wanted to come out for them. I suppose too, there aren’t all that many places to get a bite to eat afterwards either.”

Instead, the couple has taken up pickleball. The burgeoning sport, made popular in US retirement communities, has players hitting a wiffle ball over a tennis sized net playing in sets of 11 points.

They play on an alternating basis in Tapu and Te Puru, both only a short drive along the coast from Thames. “Sometimes the grandchildren [of other players] turn up and think they can show us up – but we surprise them,” chuckles Stevenson.

Thames Coromandel mayor, Len Salt, himself a SuperGold cardholder, says his council are keenly aware of its ageing population, and how a transfer of skills, knowledge and experience can take place between the town’s retirees and young people looking for greener pastures. “We are working to improve the contribution elderly people can make to the community. There is a huge potential of skills, experience, capabilities, knowledge and time there waiting to be unlocked.”

Salt says he and his councillors often ask themselves what they can do to make the sharing of these skills and expertise more seamless. “Things like the use of council facilities, the rallying of volunteers, help with connecting individuals.”

One such project that has blossomed without council help is between Menzshed and Moanataiari School​. The shed members are assisting with the building of a school tree house.

Working with the primary school pupils, members like Tony Winter are passing on their extensive wood working knowledge. “We’re connecting with youth,” says Winter.“Our current one,” he says, pointing to a piece of corflute board with a schematic drawing on it, “is some tree houses. [The pupils] come here once a week to help out.”

Mayor of neighbouring Hauraki district, home to another hyper-aged community in Ngatea, Toby Adams, says that many of the community’s older residents have migrated to the district to retire. “For the likes of Thames, Whitianga, Ngatea, Paeroa and Waihi, the proximity to where they’ve come from – for some of them it’s Tauranga or Auckland – is a drawcard.”

Selling up in the cities often means they come to town “on fixed retirement incomes… They can sell up, buy a nice modern home, put some money in the bank and start enjoying the later years of life.”

– additional reporting Jonah Franke-Bowell