Australia’s State Specific and Regional Migration Schemes: exploring permanent and temporary skilled migration outcomes in South Australia

Economic integration of temporary and permanent migrants: Between migrant and return migrant status

As if We Weren't Humans: The Abandonment of Temporary Migrants in Australia during COVID-19

Temporary labour migration has rarely been studied at macro level despite its high prevalence in India. Drawing from the recently available Indian National Sample Survey (2007–08), this paper aims to study the basic differentials between temporary and permanent labour migration at the national level and examines the socioeconomic determinants of temporary labour migration at the state level. The study shows that temporary migration is seven times larger than permanent migration, and is largely a rural phenomenon dominated by rural to urban migration. A regional pattern in temporary labour migration is evident in the low-income Central and North Indian states. Low economic, educational and social status significantly induces temporary labour migration in contrast to permanent labour migration. As such, temporary labour migration appears to be a survival strategy of the rural poor in India.

Britain and many other European countries have been important sources of settler migration to Australia for more than two hundred years. While the sources of settler migration to Australia have diversified in the last thirty years to include non‐European countries, with the current emphasis on skills in Australia's migration policy, many skilled people from Europe are coming to Australia both as settlers and as temporary migrants. This paper examines Europe as a source of both permanent and temporary skilled migration to Australia in recent years. It looks at the trend in migration from European countries to Australia from the 1960s to the present, noting the changes in patterns over time, both in terms of type of migration and source countries. It then focuses on European migration to Australia since the mid‐1990s when Australia's immigration policy became more skill‐oriented and a temporary skilled migration visa program was implemented to simplify the process by which employers could sponsor skilled migrant workers. While Europeans are not a large group among permanent migrants, many come as temporary migrants and then decide to apply for permanent residence. Survey data are used to examine their reasons for migration and residence/return migration intentions, comparing permanent skilled migrants with temporary skilled migrants. European migrants are more likely than other migrants to indicate lifestyle reasons for migrating or coming to Australia to work and then seeking permanent residence, with differences also observed among migrants from different regions in Europe. The implications for ‘brain drain’/‘brain circulation’ are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

A growing number of temporary visa holders reside in regional Australia, from skilled temporary visa holders to international students at regional university campuses and Working Holiday visa holders. Many of these residents spend prolonged periods of time in regional locations, often alongside groups with other migration and refugee backgrounds, and many hold permanent residency aspirations. This paper contributes to recent scholarship on affective citizenship and place-based belonging through an investigation of the social, cultural and legal dimensions of temporary migrants’ sense of belonging in regional communities. Our analysis of qualitative interviews with regional residents on different temporary visas and local employers and service providers shows that many temporary residents in regional locations develop a feeling of place-based belonging grounded in social relations and shared cultural affiliations as well as the efforts of local stakeholders who are keen to retain migrants in the location. Yet the rights restrictions associated with temporary visas tend to diminish such feelings of belonging and further exacerbate feelings of tenuous belonging for those migrants who are lacking place-based social or cultural connections. We conclude that the multidimensional nature of belonging deserves more attention in the current context of policies that are on the one hand promoting the regional settlement of temporary migrants, whilst on the other hand excluding these migrants from most social rights granted to other taxpayers.

The response to COVID-19: Occupational resilience and the resilience of daily occupations in action.

Literature on international migration from India in the past has focused on the formation and development of ‘Indian diasporas’; that is, Indians who have moved to various parts of the world and maintain socio-economic, cultural and political lives in India as well as other countries. However, little attention has been paid toward ‘temporary migrants’ who have migrated to different countries with a temporary visa and in the course of time extended their visas to become ‘permanent residents’. Temporary migration from India has become a common trend over the last two decades, especially since the acceleration of globalisation and the developments in the fields of information and communication technologies. Although it is argued that this type of migration took place in the past – for instance, Indians migrated to British, French, Dutch and Portuguese colonies during the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth centuries as indentured labourers for a period of three to five years and later extended their stays – what is new about the current trend is the new state policies of different host countries and the socio-economic and cultural background of the immigrants. This paper is an exploratory study of this contemporary phenomena of movement from ‘temporary migrant’ to ‘permanent resident’, a phenomena which has not been given much attention by academicians and policy makers in India. The present paper outlines this trend with an illustration of Indian H-1B visa holders in the United States.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to examine the independent and interactive effects of common mental health disorders and chronic pain conditions on employment and work outcomes among individuals younger than 65 years of age. METHODS: We analyzed cross-sectional data from the second wave of Healthcare for Communities (HCC2), a household telephone survey of U.S. civilian adults conducted in 2000 to 2001 (N=5328). Common mental disorders were assessed using the short-form versions of the World Health Organization’s Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI-SF). Chronic pain conditions and labor market outcomes were identified by self report. Logistic and linear regression analysis was used to provide estimates for work impairment based on the presence of a mental health disorder and/or a chronic pain condition. RESULTS: The interaction between presence of a mental health disorder and presence of a chronic pain condition was significantly associated with no work for pay in the past 12 months (OR 2.3 [1.2–4.2]) and number of days of work missed in the past month due to health (regression coefficient 1.5 [0.6]). In stratified analyses, this effect persisted in women but not men. The presence of a mental health disorder or chronic pain condition were each independently associated with limitations in work and any work missed in the past 30 days due to health, although the interaction was not significant. CONCLUSION: Mental health disorders and chronic pain are each associated with work disability. Mental health disorders are more highly associated with some work disability outcomes when accompanied by chronic pain, especially in women.

Using the National Survey of College Graduates, I investigate the degree to which holders of temporary work visas in the United States are mobile between employers. Holders of temporary work visas either have legal restrictions on their ability to change employers (particularly holders of intra-company transferee visas, L-1s) or may be reluctant to leave an employer who has sponsored them for permanent residence (particularly holders of specialty worker visas, H-1Bs). I find that the voluntary job changing rate is similar for temporary visa holders and natives with similar characteristics. For the minority of temporary workers who receive permanent residence, there is a considerable spike in voluntary moving upon receipt of permanent residence, suggesting mobility is reduced during the application period by about 20%. My analysis of reasons for moving suggests that applicants are prepared to pay a small but not large professional price for permanent access to the U.S. labor market.

This paper explores the implications of domestic and family violence occurring across borders, specifically the utilisation of border crossings to exert control and enact violence. While gendered violence can and does occur in border-crossing journeys, this paper focuses more specifically on how domestic and family violence extends across national borders and how violence (or the threat of violence and deportation) can manifest across multiple countries when women are temporary visa holders. This paper illuminates the way in which migration systems play a significant role in temporary migrant experiences of domestic and family violence. Drawing on a study of 300 temporary migrants and their experiences of domestic and family violence, I argue that perpetrators effectively weaponise the migration system to threaten, coerce and control women in different ways, most often with impunity. I also argue that we cannot focus on perpetrators and the individual alone—that we need to build on the border criminology scholarship that highlights the need to focus on systemic harm in the context of domestic and family violence and identify how the migration regime contributes to gendered violence.

Cameo 3 - The Two-Step Australian Immigration Policy and its Impact on Immigrant Employment Outcomes

The Two-Step Australian Immigration Policy and its Impact on Immigrant Employment Outcomes

Skilled migration has become a major element of contemporary migration flows. It has developed in scale and variety since the 1930s and now takes many forms, including brain drain, professional transients, skilled permanent migrants and business transfers. It has gone from “brain drain” to the “international exchange of human resources” in fifty years. Originally much skilled migration was forced by conflict or ethnic discrimination, but it has now come to include a search for greater opportunities and better life chances and lifestyles. Globalization and the liberalization of opportunities in newly developing countries mean that there is now also return migration of skilled emigrants and migration of nationals of developed countries to developing countries.

By virtue of its island geography and isolation, Australia is able to control the scale and composition of immigration more than most nations. Accordingly, it has one of the most highly managed migration programs and intakes. Skill selection has been the major focus of both permanent and temporary migration programs in Australia over the last two decades. Government has continually modified the Permanent Migration Program so that not only are a higher proportion of settlers coming to Australia under the Skilled Migration Program but the skill selection is tied increasingly to skill shortages in the labor market. Increasingly, permanent settlers are selected from student migrants and skilled temporary migrants because they have Australian qualifications and experience. The article analyzes the increasingly complex nexus between temporary and permanent skilled migration in Australia, and discusses the changing scale and composition of skilled migration to Australia. One particular feature of Australian immigration has been the continual shifts in the process of selection of skilled temporary and permanent immigrants on the basis of empirical evidence to achieve better economic outcomes.

Globally, in 2020, the social and economic consequences of lockdown laws during the pandemic disproportionately disadvantaged temporary migrants. In his now infamous statement to visa holders in March 2020, the Australian Prime Minister contrasted “good times” during which “it’s lovely to have visitors to Australia” with “times like this” in which non-residents were no longer welcome in Australia. Despite its relative global affluence, Australia excluded temporary visa holders from virtually all government financial support packages. This article empirically examines the impact of these policies on international students in Australia, the largest group of long-term temporary visa holders who, with their limited work rights, have become a de facto low wage migrant workforce in this country. It presents new large-scale data from a July 2020 survey of over 5,000 international students and recent graduates reflecting widespread inability to pay for essential medical needs, lack of access to secure housing and emergency support, and their experiences of racism, discrimination and social exclusion in Australia during the pandemic. A national and global reckoning with the immediate and long-term impact of government policies on migrants during the pandemic and reinvigoration of the relevance of the human rights framework during “times like this”.