The socio-economic status of migrant populations in regional and rural Australia and its implications for future population policy |
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Authors: | Simon J L Massey Nick Parr |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Marketing and Management, Faculty of Business and Economics, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia |
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Abstract: | The migrant population living in regional and rural Australia has been growing, partly because of the introduction and expansion
of a number of state-specific and regional migration programs by the Australian Government over the period since 1995. The
programs were created in response to both the skill shortages in regional and rural Australia and environmental and social
critiques of urban migration. This study uses data from the 2006 Census of Population and Housing in Australia to compare
five socio-economic measures: labour force participation, unemployment, income, educational attainment, and occupational status,
between the migrant and Australia-born populations. The results reveal that the migrant population in regional and rural Australia
now records similar values for the labour force participation rate, unemployment rate, median individual weekly income, and
proportion in high skill level occupations to the Australia-born population. The most notable difference is that migrants
have a substantially higher level of education, particularly university education. The differences between men and women on
these socio-economic measures are wider for the migrant population than for the Australia-born. Recently-arrived migrants
are significantly more educated, more highly skilled and higher paid than their longer-standing counterparts. The study also
discusses the differences between the larger migrant groups living in regional and rural Australia. The improvement in the
socio-economic outcomes experienced by the migrant population of regional and rural Australia and their broad similarity to
those of the Australia-born living in these regions strengthen the case for increasing the proportion of migrant settlers
going to these regions. |
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