As a product of the British indentured labour system, Indian immigrants, called ‘girmitiyas’, came to Fiji in 1879 to work in sugarcane plantations. Indians succeeded Melanesians as plantation labourers (Connell 1985: 45). Between 1879 and 1916, 60,000 Indian migrants arrived in Fiji and their work helped create the foundations of Fiji’s sugar-based economy (Lal 2003). The system of indentured labour ended officially on January 1, 1920. By that time, there was a sizeable free Indian population in Fiji and they were mostly farmers from Punjab, and traders and merchants from Gujarat (Lal 2003). The Gujarati population in Fiji increased from 324 in 1921 to 2,500 by 1936 (Ali and Crocombe 1981). Their arrival prompted the rapid growth of trade and business in the Fiji Islands. The majority of Asians, particularly the Chinese, immigrated to Pacific countries and to Fiji under two systems. Some came under an indentured labour system and others as ‘free emigrants’ on a credit system (Willson, Moore and Munro 1990: 80). The first Chinese settlement was recorded in Levuka, the old capital of Fiji, in the 1870s, its occupants being gold miners from Australia who came to Fiji when the Australian mines were depleted (Yee 1974: 300).

A process of permanent emigration started during and after independence in 1970 and it has been a continuing process since then. Fiji witnessed ‘great waves’ of outflow of skilled human resources during the 1980s and 1990s and again after May 2000 (Mohanty 2001, 2002). The total official outflow from Fiji was more than 91,000 between 1987 and 2004 (Table 1). Unofficial independent sources, however, estimate the figure to be more than 100,000 (Bedford 1989). Between 2000 and 2004, 27,000 citizens emigrated from Fiji. The permanent emigration process is dominated by the Indo-Fijians (88–9 per cent). The annual average rate of migration showed a varied pattern over the years. Before the 1987 coups, the annual average migration rate was 2,300 migrants a year, which increased to 4,900 during 1987–99, and to 5,800 migrants a year during 2000–03 (Mohanty 2001). Fiji has lost more than 3,800 professionals, technical and related workers since the coup in 2000 (Table 1). This represents more than half of Fiji’s stock of middle- to high-level workers (Government of Fiji 2002: 41). Teachers are the single most dominant professional group that Fiji has been losing.

* The figure for 2004 is from January to September.

** Includes professional, technical and related workers.

Source: Fiji Bureau of Statistics, 1987–2004, Tourism and Migration Statistics and Statistical News.

New Zealand, Australia, the USA and Canada are the four major traditional destination countries of Fiji’s migrants. In 1980, about two-thirds of Fiji’s emigrants entered Canada and the USA and another 29 per cent went to Australasia (Mohanty 2001: 63). Since 1987, this trend has been reversed. This reversal is attributed to many factors, such as geographic proximity, skilled labour demand, family reunion and the changing immigration policies of the receiving countries.

Push and pull factors are at work in the international migration process in Fiji. While factors such as land insecurities, unemployment (5–7 per cent during 1980–2001) and political upheavals were the main contributing push factors for emigration, the higher pay and standard of living, better economic opportunities, better health facilities and educational prospects for children in the metropolitan countries are some of the pull factors that greatly influenced migration decisions. The Reserve Bank of Fiji Quarterly Review said, ‘[I]t is quite clear that the political instability generated by [the] events of 1987 and 2000 gave greater impetus to the emigration process’ (Government of Fiji 2002b: 40). Fiji lost more through the outflow of human capital resources than it gained through remittances. According to one estimate, the country lost directly and indirectly about $F45 million annually through its human capital loss (Reddy, Mohanty and Naidu 2004). Forsyth (1991: 37–44) in his study also found that there were large net negative flows of remittances in 1990.

From the 1970s to the 1990s, Fiji remained a labour emigrant country in Oceania. Partly under the influences of globalising processes, there has been a shift in trends in international migration in Fiji in the recent period. In addition to the continuing permanent Indo-Fijian emigration from the country, Fiji has been witnessing new trends in temporary migration, mostly indigenous Fijians, including peacekeeping forces, security personnel, nurses, sportspeople and students. Most of the indigenous Fijian migrants are moving to non-traditional areas such as the Middle East. For example, ‘more than 1,000 former Fiji military and police officers are employed in Iraq’ (Fiji Times 2005b). Under the influence of globalising processes, geographic proximity is no longer the primary driver of Fiji’s current international migration. The Indo-Fijian and Fijian transmigrant populations created over the years maintain close ties with the homeland and remain actively involved in the social, cultural, economic and political life of Fiji. As Lal (2003: 5) says, ‘[A]lthough they live abroad, they maintain active contact with Fiji through a variety of means: the internet, telephone, video, periodic re-visits and remitting money and goods to Fiji.’ The transnational overseas social networks also prompt more migration from Fiji.

One of the major trends in recent years is the intensification of the temporary movement of peacekeeping forces from Fiji to distant parts of the world. Fiji gives high priority to participation in the UN’s international peacekeeping processes, which dates from the late 1970s with the dispatch of the first troops to Lebanon in 1978 under the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), and intensified in the 1990s. Fiji’s international peacekeeping forces have been posted to global flashpoints under various missions, mostly under the UN but sometimes not, as in the case of the Sinai, Bougainville and Solomon Islands. Apart from joining the British Army, Fiji’s soldiers have been playing a prominent role in international peace and security and in the process of nation-building in conflict-laden countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, PNG (Bougainville), Croatia, East Timor, Iraq, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Egypt (the Sinai), Solomon Islands, Somalia and, recently, Sudan. In addition, the number of Fijians working for private security companies as guards, escorts and other security personnel, especially in the Middle East, is significant. The movement of peacekeeping forces and security personnel overseas has generated substantial personal remittances (Table 2).

Student mobility is another type of temporary migration from Fiji. There have been an increasing number of students on overseas scholarship programs. The number of overseas scholarships awarded to students from Fiji was more than 530 during 1991–2000 (Fiji Public Service Commission 2002). In addition, Indo-Fijian cultural and social associations overseas are sponsoring Indo-Fijian students from Fiji (Lal 2003: 5).

Nurses from Fiji have been migrating to other Pacific countries and the UK. Rokoduru (2002) in her research finds that nurses have been migrating from Fiji to the Marshall Islands since 1995. She found 11 nurses from Fiji (29 per cent of the total) were working in Ebeye’s Health Centre in 2002 and they were predominantly single males. A step-wise migration process is also at work as more than half of the Fijian nurses wanted to migrate to the USA after a stay of five years in the Marshall Islands.

A notable trend in Fiji’s migratory stream is that the proportion of Indo-Fijian emigrants has been declining and, in contrast, the proportion of indigenous Fijians has been on the rise. The proportion of indigenous Fijian migrants to total emigration has doubled from 5 per cent in 1991 to 10 per cent in 2003 (Fiji Bureau of Statistics 1991–2003). Correspondingly, the proportion of Indo-Fijian emigrants has declined from 90 per cent to 86 per cent during the same period. This changing trend might be attributed more to the impact of globalising processes and to exogenous factors rather than endogenous ones. Although the number of indigenous Fijians in the total emigration stream remains relatively small, the progressive increase in proportion of indigenous Fijian emigration and skilled categories is of great concern. As Robertson (2005) says, the ‘recent desire by as many as 15,000 mainly Fijians to work in West Asia has generated domestic racial fears’.

There are marked differences between the ‘old’ and ‘new’ contemporary labour migratory trends in Fiji. While the former was predominantly a permanent and partly involuntary type consisting largely of Indo-Fijians, and attributed primarily to endogenous factors, the latter is a temporary, voluntary type consisting of indigenous Fijians under internal as well as external or global influences. Another difference is that while the former stream was towards traditional areas such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA, the latter is towards new areas, especially the Middle East and Pacific countries. Moreover, while the former type of migration contributed insignificantly to the generation of remittances, the new migration is primarily a remittance-generating and development-driven process.

Large-scale skilled emigration from Fiji has been accompanied by increased immigration in recent decades. In 2000, Asian immigrants accounted for about half of the total immigrants in Fiji. Chinese immigrants are the oldest and the largest Asian migrant groups in Fiji. They accounted for a little less than one-third of the total immigrants to Fiji and slightly less than two-thirds of the transnational Asian immigrants in the country in 2000 (Government of Fiji 2001). Other immigrants to Fiji came from Australia (16 per cent), the EU (9 per cent), New Zealand (9 per cent), the USA (6 per cent), the UK (4 per cent) and the Pacific Islands (4 per cent).