Second World War
According to the 1936 census, only 10% of the Maori population was urban. Within a few decades the number would rise to over 80%. This massive shift was sparked by the Second World War. The Manpower Act was used to direct young Māori men who were not in the military to work in essential industries, which were often located in cities. Young Māori women were directed to work in factories. The Māori Affairs Department appointed six Māori welfare officers to assist young women away from home.
Migration following the war
By 1945, just over 25% of the Māori population was urbanised. However, the number of Māori living in cities was still very low relative to total city populations. The Māori population of Wellington was less than 1% of the total population, while the Auckland figure was 2%.
After the war, Māori migration to cities increased. Returned Māori servicemen migrated to urban areas to utilise skills acquired during the war. Some entered teacher training, joining those who had trained under a Māori quota before the war. By the mid-1950s, 35% of Māori lived in urban areas. By the end of the decade, over half of the Māori population was urbanised.
Relocation continues
In 1960 the Department of Maori Affairs encouraged this demographic shift with an urban relocation programme. Māori welfare officers exhorted rural families to leave the subsistence economy of gardening and fishing, finding them employment and accommodation in urban centres.
Over a five-year period the department relocated 399 families and assisted 485 families who moved of their own accord. In 1966 62% of Māori were urbanised, and in 1990 the figure was over 80%.
Māori housing
It was often difficult for Māori to find housing in the cities, and hostels catered for young Māori who moved there to work. At first Māori tended to live in inner-city locations close to where unskilled work was found – on the wharves, in factories and in the transport industry.
In Auckland. the Māori Women’s Welfare League worked with Māori Affairs welfare officers to ensure Māori had access to adequate housing. The government approach to Māori housing was called ‘pepper-potting’, with Māori families sprinkled around predominantly Pākehā communities.
The number of Māori moving to cities meant housing needed to be addressed on a larger scale. Housing subdivisions built in the 1960s in Ōtara, Māngere and Te Atatū in Auckland, and Porirua, Hutt Valley and Wainuiomata in Wellington, had many Māori residents.