Resettled refugees in Australia: How the process of integration differs for refugee men and women

Abstract

Migration is a key driver of population growth in Australia. While the largest numbers of permanent migrants to Australia arrive through the skill and family stream, Australia's humanitarian program resettles between 10,000 and 20,000 refugees and other people in humanitarian need annually. The Australian government provides settlement support to refugees and other vulnerable migrants, including English language tuition, support finding employment, translating and interpretation services and other support to assist the integration process. Negative political and media rhetoric around refugees and other migrants emerges periodically in Australia; these negative portrayals are rarely grounded in evidence or carefully considered analysis. Evidence-based policy is crucial for ensuring that integration and settlement support programs achieve the best possible outcomes for vulnerable migrants resettled in Australia. This thesis examines the integration process for refugees resettled in Australia, focusing on gender differences in the process of integration. Using data from the longitudinal Building a New Life in Australia study and the Australian Census and Migrants Integrated Dataset, I examine how the integration process differs for refugees as compared to other types of migrants, how refugee labour market participation differs by gender, and the relationship between mental health and the integration process, and how this differs by gender. The results presented in this thesis show that the integration process differs by gender, visa type and year of arrival in Australia. Integration outcomes improve over time, but refugees continue to lag behind other permanent migrants in several key integration indicators, even 10 to 15 years after arrival. Labour market participation is lower among refugees than other permanent migrants; refugee women have very low rates of participation. However, refugee women were more likely than refugee men, and more likely than family and skill migrant men and women, to be engaged in education, suggesting that these human capital investments may influence labour market participation in the longer term. Refugees have worse mental health than other types of migrants, due to exposure to potentially traumatic events and stress related to settlement. While refugee women have worse mental health overall than refugee men, refugee men are at risk of worsening mental health across the settlement period. Factors related to the integration process, including employment, financial hardships and English proficiency, were related to refugees' mental health in the settlement period. These results suggest that improving the integration process, while also increasing access to mental health care, will likely have mental health benefits. Taking the results of the analyses together, this thesis contributes to a better understanding of how integration proceeds over time for refugees and builds on theories about contextual factors affecting the integration process. Specifically, this thesis makes three contributions. First, the analysis in this thesis demonstrates that the process of integration differs by gender, particularly in economic integration. Refugee women move through the integration process more slowly than refugee men or than other permanent migrant women. Second, by using two high quality sources of quantitative data on refugees in Australia, this thesis illustrates that integration processes continue beyond the settlement period, which in Australia is defined as the first five years after arrival. Third, the analysis contributes to our understanding of refugee mental health in the settlement period, demonstrating that mental health is related to conditions after arrival, especially economic conditions. These findings have significant policy implications, as they demonstrate that providing integration support beyond the settlement period may result in better outcomes for refugees, especially refugee women. Show more