This post is the last in a series of seven on population and people movement issues in the Pacific. The first six posts featured code re-generating the charts I used in a keynote speech before the November 2025 meeting of the Pacific Heads of Planning ...

R-bloggers

The final post in a seven-part series on Pacific island demographics synthesizes key findings from earlier data-driven posts. It covers population growth variation across Pacific nations, the outsized role of net migration in shaping demographics, how emigration hollows out working-age populations (contrasting Kiribati and Marshall Islands), the scale of Pacific diaspora communities overseas, and the economic significance of remittances. Policy implications are outlined for planners and statisticians, including infrastructure planning, taxation, labor mobility, and the fate of low-lying nations under climate change.

Pacific island demograpy, the narrative by @ellis2013nz

Population growth is varied, but the larger Pacific island countries are growing pretty fast

Net migration is a critical factor in different population growth rates

Migration (short and long term) changes the shape of the origin country’s demographics

Pacific people are overseas in very considerable numbers

Remittances are a critical, even dominant, part of many (but not all) Pacific island economies