For over a century, Niueans have been moving to New Zealand in search of a better life. Did they find it?

For more than a century, Niueans have been exercising their right as citizens of New Zealand to move here in search of a better life.

In the last fifty years, what started as a trickle of migration has become a flood.

More than 24,000 people living in New Zealand identify as Niuean. But in Niue, the population barely tops 1600.

There is some evidence that the trend has topped out and may even be slightly reversing. But when over 90% of your people live somewhere else, the story of your nation, your language and your identity inevitably becomes complicated.

Here are two of those stories.

"The whole of the Pacific is where I'm from."

It seems like kind of a mean trick.

Little Shimpal Lelisi was four years old and living in the village of Liku in Niue. It's 1976 and his family had just given him some flash new clothes. Shimpal was excited.

"We got new shirts made, to go somewhere.

"I didn't know where we were going but it was somewhere big."

He was right. Shimpal's new shirt wasn't for church or visiting. He and his family were leaving Niue to live in Niu Silani - New Zealand.

Shimpal's folks weren't being mean or playing a trick; they were trying to do the best by their family. But Shimpal wasn't that impressed, and even less so by his first sight of Auckland.

"It was raining and it was dark and it was cold. And I was still in my shirt. My short-sleeved shirt."

He was also a bit scared.

"Where are we and when are we going to go home?"

It would be nearly twenty years before Shimpal went back to Niue and by then, he wasn't sure it was home anymore.

Liku is on Niue's east coast, directly opposite the capital of Alofi. Shimpal was just a kid when he left, but he clearly remembers eating mangoes, fishing with his dad, hunting for delicious uga (coconut crab) and chasing other kids around the village. Life for him was good.

But Shimpal's dad was a carpenter and he couldn't find enough work. Mr Lelisi had left for New Zealand a couple of years earlier and now the rest of the family was following.

If you set aside the cold weather, the family had a reasonably soft landing when they arrived in Auckland, with plenty of relatives and people from Liku to welcome them and ease their way into jobs and housing. The idea was to earn good money, educate their kids and then go back home…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details