The New Zealand Socioeconomic Index: developing and validating an occupationally-derived indicator of socio-economic status.

OBJECTIVE: Following revision of the international standard classification (ISCO88), to update and validate on health data an occupationally derived indicator of socio-economic status (SES) adapted to changing occupational and demographic conditions. METHOD: The development of the New Zealand Socioeconomic Index (NZSEI) is based on a 'returns to human capital' model of the stratification process and uses data from the 1991 New Zealand Census (n = 1,051, 926) to generate scores for 97 occupational groups. The construct validation of the scale is carried out on data from the 1992-93 nationwide Household Health Survey (n = 3,000) using three health indicators (self-assessed health, cigarette smoking, general practitioner visits). RESULTS: In general, the results are consistent with expected socio-economic patterns drawn from the literature for the three indicators. CONCLUSIONS: While further work is required on a number of methodological and conceptual issues, the NZSEI provides a robust, standardised and internationally comparable occupational scale of SES for both males and females in either full- or part-time employment. IMPLICATIONS: The NZSEI can be used on routinely collected occupational data. It has a clear conceptual rationale, updates existing SES scales, and provides a link to international standards in SES and occupational classification.

Post-1945 international migration: New Zealand, Australia and Canada compared.

"New Zealand's immigration policies and trends since 1945 are compared with those of Canada and Australia. For most of this period, Australia has pursued the more expansive immigration policy while Canada and New Zealand have tended to link immigration intakes to fluctuations in labor demand. All three countries initially discriminated against non-European immigrants but gradually moved towards nondiscriminatory policies based on similar selection criteria and means of assessment. New Zealand has traditionally been more cautious than both Canada and Australia in terms of how many immigrants it accepted and from what sources, but it has recently followed the other two in raising immigration targets encouraging migration from nontraditional sources, particularly Asian countries. Historical, global and national factors are drawn upon to explain the degree of convergence between these three societies."

Asian medical education.

In order to address issues relating to medical education in Asia, consideration must be given to the many differences among Asian countries, including variations in sizes, populations, social and cultural backgrounds, histories, political systems, and stages of economic development. In most Asian countries, poverty is pervasive, and it is usually national in scope. This is often coupled with lack of government commitment to provide health facilities and health care for the entire population. Systems of medical education differ widely and are based mainly on those of the country of colonial domination; hence, the systems may reflect predominantly British, American, Japanese, or Dutch influence, among others. Although most medical schools in Asia have academic disciplines and admission standards similar to those of Western schools, there are sharp differences among countries in faculty salaries, faculty competence, academic standards, adequacy of staffing, and number of medical schools. Underlying conditions and influences that have contributed to the current status of medical education systems in Asia are discussed.