Geographical implications of restricting foreign medical immigration: a New Zealand case study, 1976-87

Foreign medical graduates (FMGs) have come to play an important role in providing primary care, especially in the more rural and poorer urban parts of New Zealand, locations which locally trained doctors have traditionally found unattractive. Since 1980, new immigration policies have enhanced this pattern, but are not the main cause of it. Rather, it is suggested that a set of informal constraints, arising from increased competition among greater numbers of GPs has caused a diffusion of foreign doctors into areas of need, although their presence in such areas, is for the most part, only temporary. Nevertheless, it is suggested that the success of market based policies in terms of improving the distribution of GPs is, to a large extent, dependent upon the presence of FMGs in the labour pool. Seen in this light, recent changes in immigration policy, which have reduced the inflow of FMGs into New Zealand, may well have been premature.