Migrant children to Australia

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Migrant children to Australia Problems and
Paradoxes

• Ilan Katz and Gerry Redmond
• Social Policy Research Centre
• UNSW
• ACWA Conference
• Sydney August 18-20 2008

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The issue

• Migrant children in Australia fare much better
  than migrants to other similar countries
• As a group migrant children do as well or better
  on a range of outcomes than native Australian
  children
• This is even true for NESB children
• This is despite the challenges and difficulties
  that many face when moving to a new country
• What is it about Australia which facilitates
  resilience in migrant children (and their
  parents)?
• Is this trend likely to continue?

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Migration to Australia

• Australia has one of the highest levels of
  migration of any OECD country.
• 24 of the Australian population was born
  overseas (ABS, 2007)
• gt 140,000 migrants per annum
• Children
• 67 - Both Parents Australian
• 30 Migrant (19 - English speaking countries,
  13 -Non English Speaking Countries) (Authors
  calculation from 2001 census)
• Migration was always encouraged but very
  regulated
• However migrant (CALD) population has become much
  more diverse in the past few years

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(No Transcript)
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Country of origin of child migrants to Australia
2001

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Income Migrant and Australian families
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Income Migrant and Australian families
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Child Poverty Rate and effect of transfers
Australia France Germany England United States
Percentage in poverty Percentage in poverty Percentage in poverty
Immigrant families 19.7 18.5 14.5 28.8 33.0
Native-born families 13.3 6.1 8.0 15.6 19.8
Difference -6.4 -12.4 -6.5 -13.2 -13.2
Poverty effect of social transfers Poverty effect of social transfers Poverty effect of social transfers
Immigrant families -12.4 -37.6 -7.4 -29.8 -0.7
Native-born families -11.6 -23.8 -6.7 -14.9 -2.1
Luxemburg Income Study
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Psychological Distress
New South Wales Chief Health Officer, (2007)
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Psychological Distress
New South Wales Chief Health Officer, (2007)
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Educational Attainment
Percentage of Year 3 students achieving the
reading and numeracy benchmarks by gender and
subgroup for Australia in the years 2000 to
2005 Reading Numeracy
National Report on Schooling in Australia 2005
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Labour market
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• Children with Language Other Than English (LOTE)
  and Indigenous Australian children in LSAC

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Distribution of indigenous children and children
with LOTE across household income quintile
groups (per cent)
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Outcomes

• Outcome Index for LSAC was developed to give an
  overall measure of childrens wellbeing
• Consists of three components
• Physical
• Social and Emotional
• Cognitive

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Outcome index scores for indigenous and children
with LOTE in LSAC
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Parent stress and parenting practice scores for
indigenous and children with LOTE (per cent with
sub-optimal scores)
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Conclusion

• As a group, migrants children do well in
  Australian society.
• Their health, education, income, labour market
  participation and general wellbeing are similar
  to native Australians
• Migrant children from non-OECD countries also do
  reasonably well
• Considering their low SES, NESB children in LSAC
  are doing well
• However some specific migrant groups (Lebanon,
  Vietnam, Turkey and possibly Horn of Africa) are
  disadvantaged
• This contrasts with similar countries where
  immigrant and ethnic minority children have much
  poorer outcomes than the overall population

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Conclusions

• Partly due to policy of control of migration and
  history of absorbing migrants, and the labour
  market structure.
• However, the experiences of migrants in Australia
  are similar to those of migrants to other
  countries
• racism, discrimination, dislocation, identity
  issues, difficulties adjusting to new culture and
  low access to services
• Possibly borne out by the distress levels of
  parents with LOTE in LSAC and the NSW Health
  Survey
• Thus relatively good outcomes are not due to
  lower levels of racism or better welcome in
  Australia but are more structural
• Confirmed by the situation of Indigenous
  Australians who are disadvantaged
• Australia lacks adequate research which examines
  the dynamics of different groups of migrant
  children and their outcomes

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Ilan Katz and Gerry RedmondSocial Policy
Research CentreUniversity of New South Wales

• Ilan.katz_at_unsw.edu.au
• www.sprc.unsw.edu.au
• The work for this study was funded by UNICEF