Title Socioeconomic attainments and birthplace variations in Australia Author(s) Adhikari, Pramod Kumar, Politics, Australian Defence Force Academy, UNSW Resource Type Thesis PhD Doctorate Keyword(s) Australian immigration discrimination earnings employment equality immigrant workers immigrants immigration human capital labour force labour market migrant enclaves migrants migration non-English speaking background NESB socioeconomic attainments status Date 1996 School/Centre University of New South Wales - Australian Defence Force Academy. School of Politics Description/Abstract Australia is home for immigrants from more than a hundred countries and in total almost a quarter of all Australians are overseas-born. A high proportion of immigrants in a society raises question about socioeconomic equality. The purpose of the thesis is to study the differences in socioeconomic attainments between immigrants and native-born workers. Using data collected from the Issues in Multicultural Australia Survey, conducted in 1988, and the ABS Census of Population and Housing, 1986 and 1991, the study finds that human capital variables such as education, language proficiency and experience largely explain the socioeconomic attainments of Australian-born workers. Among immigrant workers, however, these human capital variables have little or no effect on status attainments. The data also show that the lower socioeconomic status of immigrants may not be due only to the lower investment in human capital. Even second generation NESB immigrants are unable to obtain comparable rewards compared to longer established Australians with similar education and skills. The study indicates that there may be barriers in the Australian labour market operating against NESB immigrants. The study concludes that there are birthplace variations in workers’ socioeconomic attainments. When employers can hire Australian-born workers from a large pool of unemployed workers, immigrant workers will be excluded from employment. Immigrant workers will only be hired if the rewards for these workers are lower compared to Australian-born workers. In situations of high unemployment, especially, immigrant workers will find it difficult to be treated equally in the labour market. Language EN Rights Please click here to view the rights Citation Link Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://handle.unsw.edu.au/1959.4/38641 Full Text   Total Attachment(s) 12 Description Size Format Filename front material 866 kB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE01 chapter1 1.6 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE02 chapter2 1.7 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE03 chapter3 1.6 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE04 chapter4 2.4 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE05 chapter5 1.9 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE06 chapter6 1.9 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE07 chapter7 1.3 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE08 chapter8 1.2 MB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE09 chapter9 645.4 kB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE10 appendices 825.3 kB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE11 bibliography 991.4 kB Adobe Acrobat PDF SOURCE12 Save/E-mail Citation Citation Format Plain Text Citation HTML Citation EndNote Format E-mail Address   OR