WELLINGTON, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's estimated resident population reached 5,084,300 at June 30, 2020, the country's statistics department Stats NZ said on Wednesday.
These are the first population estimates to fully incorporate the 2018 Census and 2018 Post-enumeration survey (PES) results.
"One of the purposes of running a census is to recalibrate national and subnational population estimates," population insights senior manager Brooke Theyers said in a statement.
"The census coverage results from the 2018 PES, also released today, are crucial to ensure the population estimates are the best possible measure of how many people live in every community across New Zealand," Theyers said.
"The updated estimates confirm that the growth of New Zealand's population has been relatively high, averaging 1.9 percent a year in the seven years ended June 2020," she said.
Growth in the previous 20 years averaged 1.1 percent a year, she added.
The higher population growth since 2013 was driven by net migration (migrant arrivals minus migrant departures), which contributed two-thirds of the growth, or an average of 56,000 a year. Natural increase (births minus deaths) contributed the remaining one-third, or an average of 27,500 a year, statistics showed.
More than one million New Zealanders aged above 60 years old, which now accounts for 21 percent of the country's population, according to Stats NZ. Enditem
