Ethnic Capital and Assimilation to the Great Australian (Homeownership) Dream: the early housing experience of Australia's skilled immigrants

ABSTRACT

We use the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia, 2005–2006, to examine the housing tenure experience of skilled immigrants to Australia 6 and 18 months after arrival for relationships with ethnic capital (cultural background), visa category streams, aspects of human capital, demographics, social capital and discrimination. Homeownership experience is used to indicate integration into Australia's dominantly middle-class society. Multinomial regression analysis identifies visa entry category as the most important independent group of variables accounting for immigrants' short-term dwelling tenure, followed by aspects of human capital, family status, and the importance of ethnic capital for immigrants of both English-speaking and non-English-speaking backgrounds, and discrimination.

KEY WORDS:

• Ethnic capital
• skilled immigrants
• housing tenure
• Australia

Notes

[1] Of arrivals in the same years as those surveyed for LSIA3, the 2006 census shows for the UK that 97 per cent by ancestry were British, and from Ireland 95 per cent were Irish; from China + Hong Kong + Taiwan, 98 per cent were Chinese; from South Korea, 95 per cent were Koreans; from Singapore 75 per cent were Chinese, 12 per cent were Indians and 5 per cent Malays; from Indonesia 54 per cent were Chinese and 46 per cent Indonesians; from the Philippines 95 per cent were Filipinos; from India 96 per cent were Indians, and from Sri Lanka 93 per cent were Sinhalese. From Southern Africa, 42 per cent were ‘South Africans’, 42 per cent British, and 9 per cent were ‘Zimbabweans’.

[2] The Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs provides a Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia bibliography. See www.immi.gov.au/media/research/lsia/bibliography.pdf

[3] Comparisons between the 10 birthplace/ethnic groups and attributes or characteristics mentioned here were all subjected to chi square analysis using the weighted survey results; all were significant (p = 0.000).