Pacific countries that have easy access to New Zealand stand out in the region as having particularly "shaky and vulnerable" populations, and being wanting wealth, said Waikato University demographer Professor Ian Pool.

In an article carried on the New Zealand Herald newspaper Saturday, Professor Pool said that an examination of age pyramids provided by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community in Noumea showed that Niue, Tokelau and the Cook Islands had very unstable populations.

The people of all three countries have free access to New Zealand because of historical connections.

Niue and the Cook Islands are self-governing in free association with New Zealand and Tokelau is a non-self-governing territory of New Zealand.

Professor Pool said that in Niue's case, the country of only about 1,200 people had just 14.9 percent in the labor force entrant age, between 15 and 24 years.

"That is very small and it is critical for economic and social development," said Pool. Worldwide the percentage of populations in that category would be about 20 percent, he said.

Pool said Niue's profile was similar to Tokelau (14.8 percent) and the Cook Islands (15.6 percent) and the three were probably similarly affected by out-migration to New Zealand.

He said Niue had a low number of children aged under 15, about one-third of the tiny population, similar to the Cook Islands and Tokelau.

Concern was that both Niue and the Cook Islands had negative growth rates, meaning they were losing people, compared with all other Pacific countries which had positive growth rates.

Tokelau showed little change in population size since 2001.

Professor Pool said although the data showed serious demographic instability in the countries, it was impossible to indicate a time frame by when a population could be at real risk of collapse.

Source: Xinhua