Immigrant generation and income in Australia / Barry R. Chiswick and Paul W. Miller.

Abstract

Irrmigrants corrprise 30 per cent of the adult rrale Australian workforce, and the children of irrmigrants a further 12 per cent. The overseas born have 5 per cent lCMer incorres than the native born. After allCMance is arrde for differences between the birthplace groups in a nurrber of irrportant detenninants of incorre such as education attainrrent, level of labour rrarket experience, and locality, the negative inC'OITE gap experienced by the overseas born widens to 7 per cent. Schooling and pre-irrmigration labour rrarket experience have srraller effects for the overseas born, particularly arrong those from non-English speaking countries. 'These patterns, which have also been found for other irrmigrant receiving countries, are presumably due to differences in the international transferability of skills. Analysis of the inccrres of second-generation Australians reveals a surprising horrogeneity of labour rrarket experiences. There is virtually no difference in the rreans of tre rrajor incare-related variables or the partial effects on incxnes of those variables. 'The study concludes that irrmigrants in Australia have adjusted fairly well to treir new labour rrarket and that they do not suffer inordinate disadvantages. Show more