Cook Islands Case Study

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Cook Islands are a pacific country which has the series of 15 islands spread across a square the ocean, inhabited by Polynesians in a sub-tropical location (Spoonley, January 01 2014). The look of this island changed in late 1900’s where the islanders started migrating in drastic range. Different scholars have given different reasons for the population migration. Cook Islanders were mainly migrating to New Zealand and Australia for better life. Therefore there was a sweeping change in the population due to the alarming migration of people that has exaggerated the economy in a massive way. Due to the historical background the Islanders were easily able to migrate and from numerous points of view, it is less demanding to travel …show more content…

The public servants gradually decreased by 57 percent, the public sectors wages halved and most diplomatic missions of overseas were shut. There were two periods where there was a terrifying migration rate that were “firstly during 1970s when the airport opened in Rarotonga, making international travel easier and more affordable and secondly in 1996 after the recession when 1,600 public servants were made redundant”. As a result there was incredible skilled labor drained in the economy. There are more than 600 Fijians working in the Cook Islands (Vltchek, November 8 2008). This shows that the Cook Islands had to employ the workers from outer countries to work. There were many times when the population deterierated in a alarming way for instance on 2003 the population decline was due to the NZ$2.8 million pearl decline because of the unexpected disease broke out. Where the national debt remained at NZ$111 million in 2002-2003 and the cost of substantially exceeds the cost of the import than export. Moreover the income rate of the workers was very low and the communication, shipping, airlines and most merchandising was owned by smaller expatriate businessmen who kept the prices high but the cost of living was

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