A neoliberal immigration regime often takes an “economic” lens to frame and reframe immigration regulation based on a rational cost–benefit analysis of what immigration might bring to immigration-receiving countries. Under such a regime, skilled and business immigration is framed as an “economic” immigration category, which can channel in financial and human capital, while family and international humanitarian immigration is regarded as a “social” immigration category assumed to produce immigrants who are more dependent and not able to bring immediate and direct economic gain for immigrant-receiving countries. In New Zealand (NZ), such a neoliberal trend is very much alive within its contemporary immigration policy development. The paper aims to illustrate the neoliberal trend of NZ immigration policy that relates to the entry of immigrants’ family members, especially the older parents. In order to achieve this goal, a detailed review of the evolving NZ family immigration policy over the last three decades and a descriptive analysis of NZ family immigration intake will be presented. By combining the policy review and descriptive analysis together, the paper can inform a better understanding of how the neoliberal immigration regime has had an impact on the patterns of family immigration in NZ.

新自由主义的移民制度通常会根据对移民可能给移民接收国带来的合理成本效益分析，从“经济”角度来构建和重新构建移民法规。在这样的制度下，技术和商业移民被视为“经济”移民类别，可以引导金融和人力资本，而家庭和国际人道主义移民被视为“社会”移民类别，假定产生更多的移民依赖且无法为移民接收国带来直接和直接的经济收益。在新西兰（NZ），这种新自由主义趋势在其当代移民政策发展中非常活跃。本文旨在说明与移民家庭成员特别是年长父母入境有关的新西兰移民政策的新自由主义趋势。为了实现这一目标，我们将详细回顾过去 30 年不断演变的新西兰家庭移民政策，并对新西兰家庭移民数量进行描述性分析。通过将政策审查和描述性分析结合在一起，本文可以更好地理解新自由主义移民制度如何对新西兰的家庭移民模式产生影响。