Considering immigrating to New Zealand
Considering immigrating to New Zealand
Hey all, I hope I'm posting to the right place. My gf and I are both trans women considering immigrating to New Zealand from the US. We both have green list careers so we're not too worried about eligibility but we are wondering if we would be welcome/fit in in NZ.
Everything I've seen or heard in media makes NZ look about 1000 times better than the US. Every country has their problems but from my limited viewpoint NZ looks pretty great. We'd appreciate any advice or perspective you'd care to share. Thanks in advance.
There is lots of racism in NZ but it's mostly targeted at Maori, Chinese, and Indians (both Fijian and from India). If you are not one of those groups you should be mostly OK. I haven't seen too much hostility towards trans people so you should also be OK in that regard.
Be aware though, this is not an easy place to live. It's expensive as hell here and you'll be shocked at how much you are paying for food, utilities, rent and every day goods like clothes and electronics.
I have talked to countless expats and the number one thing they complain about is how impossible it is to make friends here. Kiwis are polite enough and nice enough for superficial interactions but they won't let you in their inner circles and become friends. Most expats are friends with other expats although not necessarily from the same country. Since you are in a marginal community I think this will be less of a problem for you. I presume the LGBTQ community will be more willing to embrace expats.
Having said all that I still think this is a great place to live. Just go into it with open eyes. Prepare well, bring in a shit ton of money and all your goods. You will regret not bringing something when you try to replace it and it costs triple what you paid for it.
How bad is the racism against Chinese people specifically? My GF is Chinese.
I think we also have to have something to compare against. I know people talk a lot about NZ's casual racism problem. It would be good to have input from someone who moved from the US to here to see some sort of comparison.
Perhaps the working holiday idea that someone else had would be a good plan. You could come for a year or two depending on what visa you can get, then you get a good chance to see what it is like to live here, and also the Trump presidency will be half over.
My partner is kiwi Chinese, 3rd gen NZ, but full blood.
She experiences a fair amount of casual racism. But it is pretty low key, very uncommon to have anything overt.
Individually, most people are nice.
It's no worse than anywhere else to be honest and mostly limited to older people.
There is a general feeling that chinese people are the reason our houses cost so much. They blame the chinese for their economic woes.
Also most people think Chinese people are rude and greedy and selfish.
There is a significant number of people who believe that if you are of chinese ethnicity you might be an agent of the Chinese government. Maybe a spy, maybe some sort of a agitprop agent, maybe a secret police etc. This is especially true if you have joined any kind of a chinese club or alliance.
Those are the stereotypes you'll have to deal with.
Comments like this are why the open internet rules.
This is a pretty hard one to answer. I'm not convinced there are many places in the world you can be openly non-cis and not ever feel like you're not welcome. Our latest election also swung our government pretty hard to the right, because we are not immune from the same things that affect the US and other countries. Luckily a proportional government means single parties almost never get over 50% of the vote so they are forced to make agreements with other parties and so extremist policies end up watered down.
It's also worth noting that NZ (the government and others) spend a lot of money on presenting a certain image of NZ to the world. You will find many people complaining about life in NZ, though you'll find much less complaining from people who have lived elsewhere.
With that said, I feel NZ is pretty trans friendly overall. For example, for NZ passports we let people select the sex they want, even if different from other documents, simply by signing a form (the term "sex" is used because of international passport requirements).
I would aim for a big city (by NZ standards), I know Wellington is pretty friendly to non-cis, in part because the government is based there and there are a significant number of government employees working at agencies with diversity policies (you might see this phrased as "bring your whole self to work").
I think you can say overall NZ is similar to other "western" nations (e.g. the UK or Australia), but with lower salaries, higher cost of living, and a better work life balance (for many but not all).
Agree with this, I think the point about living in a big city is important, and particularly Wellington is known to be more non-cis friendly compare with other cities.
How bad at the rural areas? We want to live in a larger city anyways but we both lobe hiking and camping so would like to be able to at least visit the countryside.
Could you expound on work life balance? What kind of vacation time is considered average? Here we get 2-3 weeks a year.
Oh I don't want to give the wrong idea, it's not like stories I've heard of the US. You're very unlikely to get attacked for not being cis or straight in rural areas, just more like comments or stares. Maybe someone else can chime in though as I'm a cis straight white male so often these kinds of things are hidden from me.
Flexible working hours are common, many places are doing work from home for a portion of your time but the new government has come down hard on this recently for public service (which is a lot of Wellington workers). You can ask to have it in your contract though, and many places still will.
Legally annual leave is 4 weeks plus 11 public holidays (special rules if you need to work on those days, most office jobs will just shut for the day). Then you also get 10 sick days on top of this.
There are bigots and assholes the same as anywhere else, but you are not likely to see the sort of systematic discrimination like you would in the US. Protection from discrimination by employers or landlords is law, and not especially controversial.
The major issues we have as a country are pretty similar to the rest of the world; our government is a coalition of 3 "conservative" parties which have been trying to undo as much of the social safety net as possible in the name of "efficiency" and "lower taxes" (which only really works if you are wealthy enough to not need the safety net in the first place); the health and education systems are chronically underfunded; and the real estate market is set up for speculators, not people who want a place to live; and the cost of living in general has been increasing dramatically in the past few years.
Standard advice for anyone considering moving; come for a working holiday for a few months before committing to moving here permanently. I love this country, but you are probably going to be in for a bit of a culture shock coming from the US
That sounds similar to things here in the US, especially housing and costs of living, though I expect those to be exacerbated by NZ being an island.
I've been trying to get an idea of NZ politics and have noticed the rightward shift, but it seems that overall the political climate is a fair bit more leftward. Also proportional government sounds like a dream compared to the shit show we have over here.
NZ being an island definitely makes a lot of stuff expensive, but housing is a whole other kettle of fish. We have no capital gains taxes*, and due to high immigration and very low interest rates housing has been seen as a can't lose investment because you buy, hold for 3-4 years and in the best periods of the boom would double your money. That basically triggered a bit of a doom spiral where because people need houses they had to buy at highly inflated prices triggered by those buying them for investments.
*Sort of, there are some exceptions where they apply, but mostly no.
I used to say our right is more left than your left but I don't think that's true anymore. Our right is pretty right these days.
If you are white or close you’re probably fine. Racism is alive and well in MZ and Oz. Especially outside big cities
Have you checked that they’ll have you? Iirc, they’re fairly strict about immigration.
Yes, my gf is a healthcare practitioner and I'm an engineer. Both of our careers are on the immigration green list, which gives us a permanamt resident visa.
It sounds like you would qualify for residency easy enough. You can start the process now, it takes a long time and there is a lot of paperwork to go through. I wouldn't bother with a so called consultant. Just do the calculations on the web site and if you have enough points you should be OK.
Here is a suggestion for you.
See if you can get a work visa first. In your fields you should be able to get offers and once that's done you can get a work visa for two years. During those two years you can file for residency here if you like it.
As a US citizen you can have dual citizenship and can always go back if it doesn't work out.
Healthcare work here is tough, long hours, very low pay compared to the USA and Europe or Australia.
Finally.
Have you considered Australia? More money, more opportunities, friendlier people (but still pretty damned racist towards aboriginals, asians, indians etc).
I love NZ very much. Wonderful people and amazing natural geography. But Australia has higher incomes and more career opportunities and would still be considered a huge career downgrade for many US citizens which probably still favors relocation to the more liberal US cities/states. The city/inner burbs of the major Aus cities are going to be reasonably liberal (in the American sense) and very multicultural probably more so than most of New Zealand outside Aukland. Aus has ridiculously high immigration rates but can be difficult to qualify. NZ currently has a conservative government keeping the divisive culture wars alive while Australia has a centrist Labor federal government as do the majority of Australian states.