Calls for strategy to address needs of increasing Asian population

July 10, 2021

NZ’s fastest-growing population encompasses a vast range of ethnic groups.

It's our fastest growing population - Asian New Zealanders are set to make up a quarter of the New Zealand population in 20 years' time.

But a researcher studying young people's health needs says the very term "Asian New Zealanders" is fast approaching its use-by date.

They are a young and diverse part of Aotearoa's future but now there's a debate about the usefulness of the term Asian.

“It can run the danger of perpetuating that eternal foreigner myth,” a student told 1 NEWS.

A vast array of cultures and ethnicities are captured by the term Asian. They include Afghanistan in the west, through India and China, to Japan in the east and Indonesia in the south.

Dr Roshini Peiris-John is co-director of the University of Auckland's Centre for Asian and Ethnic Minority Health Research and Evaluation.

She says “lumping all of us together” within an Asian tag doesn't recognise those differences.

A long-running academic survey has been looking at the health and wellbeing of New Zealand youth - this year breaking down the data on Asian students for the first time.

It found south Asian Kiwis from Indian, Sri Lankan or Pakistani backgrounds experienced the highest rates of poverty in the group.

Asian New Zealanders are set to make up a quarter of the New Zealand population in 20 year’s time.

“We are seeing 15 per cent of our young Asian people worry often about their parents not having money for food to feed them,” says Peiris-John.

A light also being shone on Chinese, Filipino and Korean rangitahi - about a third reporting significant depressive symptoms.

Asian Family Service’s Dr Kelly Feng says that "at our service level there are an increasing level of people being bullied at school, depression, stress, having an eating disorder or gambling addiction”.

She says a national strategy is needed, one that is culturally appropriate.

“To really put in place an equity lens on Asian people in New Zealand as well,” Feng says.

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