Migrant children to Australia – Problems and Paradoxes

1. Migrant children to Australia – Problems and Paradoxes Ilan Katz and Gerry Redmond Social Policy Research Centre UNSW ACWA Conference Sydney August 18-20 2008

2. 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?

3. 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) • > 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

5. Country of origin of child migrants to Australia 2001

6. Income – Migrant and Australian families

7. Income – Migrant and Australian families

8. Child Poverty Rate and effect of transfers Luxemburg Income Study

9. Psychological Distress New South Wales Chief Health Officer, (2007)

10. Psychological Distress New South Wales Chief Health Officer, (2007)

11. 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 ReadingNumeracy National Report on Schooling in Australia 2005

12. Labour market

13. Children with Language Other Than English (LOTE) and Indigenous Australian children in LSAC

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

15. Outcomes • Outcome Index for LSAC was developed to give an overall measure of children’s wellbeing • Consists of three components • Physical • Social and Emotional • Cognitive

16. Outcome index scores for indigenous and children with LOTE in LSAC

17. Parent stress and parenting practice scores for indigenous and children with LOTE (per cent with sub-optimal scores)

18. 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

19. 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

20. Ilan Katz and Gerry RedmondSocial Policy Research CentreUniversity of New South Wales Ilan.katz@unsw.edu.au www.sprc.unsw.edu.au The work for this study was funded by UNICEF