The ‘Ethnic’ Welfare Worker: Personal Perspectives on Changes to Welfare Approaches in Multicultural Australia (1970s–1980s)

Abstract

Australia’s welfare systems underwent dramatic changes from the 1970s. This included a move from assimilationist approaches to more pluralist ones, in delayed recognition of Australia’s multiethnic populace. This paper explores the perspectives of three migrant-background women, self-identified ethnic welfare workers, who worked within a developing multicultural welfare system in the Australian state of New South Wales from the 1970s and 1980s. Their oral history testimony is analysed in conjunction with contemporaneous papers by ethnic welfare workers and academics debating the practice and philosophy of migrant welfare. Ethnic welfare workers were both witnesses to and active participants in the practical and philosophical changes to welfare and social service delivery in NSW since the 1970s. These oral histories provide the historical account with subjective perspectives on both the day-to-day realities and broader ideological implications of legislative changes to community welfare practices. The three women demonstrate the complex and non-linear relationship that ethnic welfare workers have to the social work profession and to the idea of professionalisation from the 1970s.