Responding to Negative Public Attitudes towards Immigration through Analysis and Policy: regional and unemployment dimensions

ABSTRACT

This paper examines two key dimensions of the impact of immigration for Australia and related policy aspects. One is sub-national and the other is national. They are, first, the regional location aspects of immigration and, second, the aggregate unemployment implications of immigration. These are chosen so as to focus on two important issues that condition public attitudes towards immigration. In relation to the first, there is a common positive view that channelling migration towards regional areas assists regional development and reduces pressure on metropolitan areas. The paper reviews regional concepts embodied in Australian immigration policy and the ways in which visa arrangements have implemented policies geared towards the regional dispersal of immigrants. Using official data, it discusses the demographic impacts of these policies and, in particular, considers the extent to which immigrants to regional Australia remain there over the longer term. In relation to unemployment, a common concern is that immigrants take jobs from local workers. The paper examines—using statistical regression methodology—the relationship between immigration and national aggregate unemployment in Australia. It evaluates the net consequences of immigration for both existing residents and new arrivals together. The paper concludes that, with good policy design in each case, regional location encouragement can be effective for immigrants and that immigrants need not take more jobs than they create. The analysis demonstrates that mixed-methods approaches to important social science issues can be productive, and helpful also for policy. Evidence, such as that presented in this paper, offers a powerful basis from which to counter negative public and political discourses surrounding immigration in contemporary Australia.

KEYWORDS:

• Immigration
• regions
• policy design
• skilled migration
• unemployment

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the editors and referees for very constructive comments. Responsibility for the contents remains that of the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

This work was partly supported by the Australian Council of Learned Academies from the Australian Research Council Grant [LS120100001 “Securing Australia's Future: Project 1 – Australia's Comparative Advantage”].

Notes

1. Permanent skilled and business migration to Australia operates on a points-based system. Prospective migrants must reach a minimum number of points to become eligible to apply for a visa.

2. Including the Northern Territory (NT), in its entirety, as well as Western Australia (WA) and Queensland (QLD) above the Tropic of the Capricorn.

3. There is one later survey of regional immigrants (Institute for Social Science Research 2010) but it contains only a minuscule number of the SRS immigrants, which does not permit evaluating how much retention has improved.