Pacific population at 14M in 2030

The Secretariat of the Pacific Community projects the population of Pacific islands to reach 9.5 million in 2008 and continue growing until it reaches 14 million in 2030.

The regional intergovernmental organization, in a report released yesterday, estimated the Northern Marianas’ population at 62,969 this year. This is down 9 percent from the population count at the last census done in 2000.

Thousands of foreign workers left Saipan after garment factories closed due to changes in international trade quotas. Many local residents have also moved to Guam, Hawaii and mainland United States for higher paying jobs and other reasons.

“The population of the Pacific Islands will reach 9.5 million in 2008, and grows by 1.9 percent annually—which resembles a yearly growth of 180,000 people, or about 500 people per day,” said Gerald Haberkorn, manager of statistics and demography at SPC.

The total population of SPC’s 22 Pacific Island member countries and territories is estimated to reach 9,498,900 people by mid-2008. The population of the Melanesian countries will be 8,310,300, the region of Polynesia will have 655,300 people, and Micronesia will include an estimated 533,300 people.

Papua New Guinea has the largest population with an estimated 6,473,900 people, followed by the Fiji Islands with approximately 839,300 people. The smallest are Tokelau, with 1,200 people, and Niue, with 1,500 people (apart from Pitcairn Island, which has 66 people).

The region’s population grows by 1.9 percent annually, which is an increase of 180,000 people per year—the approximate size of the total population of Samoa.

Guam has the fastest growing populations—at a rate of 2.8 percent—because of the influx of military personnel and their dependents, as well as migration from other countries. The populations of Solomon Islands, 2.7 percent, and Vanuatu, 2.6 percent are also growing rapidly due to high birth rates.

There are also populations that are decreasing in size, such as those of Niue (–2.4 percent) due to continuous emigration of its people to New Zealand, and the Northern Mariana Islands (–1.7 percent), which suffered from the closure of many of its garment factories and a subsequent loss of employment.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has said the recent minimum wage hikes may result in more job loss and, ultimately, a further decrease in the Commonwealth’s population. Critics of the U.S. government’s imminent takeover of local immigration have argued that the “federalization” measure would lead to population decline, as many of the foreign workers in the Commonwealth would not qualify for U.S. work visas.

The countries with the highest proportion of children aged younger than 15 years, comprising more than 40 percent of their total population, are the Marshall Islands (41.0 percent), Samoa (40.6 percent), and Solomon Islands (40.3 percent).

The countries with the highest proportion of people aged older than 60 years, comprising more than 10 percent of their total population, are Niue (15.6 percent), Tokelau (11.4 percent), the Cook Islands (11.2 percent), New Caledonia (10.5 percent), Wallis and Futuna (10.5 percent) and Guam (10.2 percent).

Detailed figures and tables are available on the website of SPC’s Statistics and Demography Programme.