The effect of first language and education on literacy, employment and income: An analysis from the Adult Literacy and Life Skills survey

2. New Zealanders with English as an additional language

In 2006, 362,000 New Zealanders aged 25 to 65 had learnt English as an additional language. This represented 17 percent of the population in this age group. More than half of this group (204,000) had arrived in New Zealand in the previous 10 years. Eleven percent (38,000) were born in New Zealand.

In terms of first language spoken, the two largest groups were speakers of East and South East Asian languages and of Middle Eastern and South Asian languages (21 percent each). For both of these language groups, the majority of people had arrived in New Zealand since 1996. The third largest group were speakers of Pacific languages (14 percent). This group had the smallest proportion of recent arrivals (19 percent since 1996).

Figure 1: New Zealanders aged 25 to 65 with English as an additional language by first language and year of immigration (2006)

New Zealanders with English as an additional language tended to be younger and were more likely to be male than New Zealanders with English as a first language. For people aged 25 to 65 who had English as an additional language only 23 percent were aged 50 years or over, compared with 32 percent of people with English as a first language. The ratio of males and females was similar in both language groups in this age group.

Figure 2: Age and gender distribution of population aged 25 to 65 by first language spoken

The ALL survey does not include any questions on the immigration policy or categories under which people arrived in New Zealand. The Longitudinal Immigration Survey (Statistics New Zealand 2008) provides this information for migrants (excluding refugees) who were approved for permanent residence in 2004 and 2005. In this survey, 59 percent of respondents had English as their best spoken language and 13 percent had moderate to poor English. This survey shows that immigrants with moderate or poor English were most likely to be approved under the business and family categories. Most migrants in these categories did not have to meet English language requirements. Immigrants with English as a first language were most likely to be approved under the skilled migrant categories, which did have English language requirements for most migrants.

Figure 3: Distribution of immigrants arriving in 2004/05 by English language ability and immigration approval category

Source: Statistics New Zealand (2008)