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This paper focuses on the association between migration and gender roles measured by women’s paid work. The main migrant group of this study, its context and the method of analysis provide opportunity to meet this objective appropriately. The paper focuses on female migrants from the Middle East and North Africa region, who are often characterized by traditional gender roles including women’s low rates of paid work. The residing country of this migrant group is Australia, which holds different gender roles including women’s high work participation rate. Accordingly, the multivariate results of this paper provide empirical evidence to examine the effects of migration on gender roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the differences associated with the patterns and determinants of women's market employment by migration status and ethnic origin. Considering “ethnic employment” as an important issue in the immigrant labor market assimilation approach and migrants’ success in the labor market as a key indication of their settlement in the host country, the results of this paper provide a basis to reassess the patterns and determinants associated with the settlement of female migrants in the multiethnic and multicultural labor market of Australia as “a particularly interesting society in which to examine how immigrant women adapt to [a] new labour market” ( Evans, 1984 :1063). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a bias in standard international migration data collection and research toward immigration and destinations while emigration origins have been neglected. This has hampered our ability to provide a substantial empirical base for migration and development policy decision making in origin areas. While improvement of migration data collection in origin countries remains an important priority, this paper argues that much can be learned about emigration from low income countries from immigration data in high income destinations. Migration stock and flow data from Australia are used to provide information on the scale and nature of movement between Asia and Australia. It establishes that there are important but different flows in both directions which belie traditional conceptualisations of south-north migration and this has significant implications for the effects of migration on economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost half Australia's population are an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. This paper traces changes in Australia's immigration policy over the postwar period and relates them to changing global and national developments. While Australian postwar immigration policy changes are similar in many ways to those in other "traditional" migration countries there are a number of distinctive elements. The effectiveness of those policies in achieving government goals is assessed and it is concluded that most objectives of policy have been successfully achieved. Nevertheless there are a number of challenges which Australian policy makers face over the next decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration policies in most host nations of the west have undergone significant changes in recent years. Based on the four country-specific papers that appear in this section of the journal, and also on our own research, we present an overview of these changes and their context. In all countries, economic considerations play a central role in shaping immigration policy and greater importance is given to scientific research. Several common policy changes are noted in Australia, Canada and New Zealand which include: a shift away from a human capital focus toward more targeted selection based on labor market demand for specific skills, increased emphasis on temporary foreign worker programs, attraction of international students, an overhauling of the refugee system, and regionalization of immigration. In the U.S., while adoption of some of these changes has often surfaced in public policy and academic discussions, legalization of unauthorized migrants remains an important policy debate, with recent arguments focusing on the economic benefits of legalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the way immigrant earnings are determined in Australia. It uses the overeducation/required education/undereducation framework and a decomposition of the native-born/foreign-born differential in the payoff to schooling. This decomposition links overeducation to the less-than-perfect international transferability of immigrants' human capital, and undereducation to favorable selection in immigration. Comparisons are offered with findings from analyses for the U.S. and Canada to enable assessment of the relative impacts of favorable selection and the limited international transferability of human capital to the lower payoff to schooling for the foreign born. The sensitivity of the results of the decomposition to several measurement issues is assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical models for residential spells and mobility data are used to examine the probability of repeat and return migration and ongoing mobility among New Zealand and British citizens who migrated to Australia between August 1999 and July 2002. The paper focuses on identifying the relationship between ongoing mobility patterns and personal and environmental circumstances, including institutional barriers to immigration and a discrete change in the social welfare eligibility of New Zealanders in Australia. The results confirm that ongoing migration patterns are far more complex than traditional migration paradigms suggest, with repeat and return migration and ongoing mobility being an important part of actual migration experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether immigrants in Australia residing in situations of residential segregation (federal constituencies with high concentrations of immigrants) participate more in electoral politics than other immigrants. The results indicate that immigrants participate more when living in federal constituencies with high concentrations of immigrants and also exhibit greater homogeneity in their partisan preferences. The analysis also indicates that the impact of residential segregation is primarily observed among immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. Immigrants from visible minority background, such as those from South East Asia as well as those from Southern and South Eastern Europe, tend to be more strongly affected by the ethnic composition of their constituencies than other immigrants such as those from the United Kingdom and Ireland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While most countries of destination of temporary migrants expect them to return home, it is likely that some temporary migration will become permanent if the migrants decide that they would like to remain longer or indefinitely for various reasons. This paper examines the factors associated with temporary migrants’ decision to become or not become permanent residents and the reasons for their decision, using survey data on skilled temporary migrants in Australia. It also looks at whether temporary migration facilitates or substitutes for permanent migration and discusses the likely effectiveness of temporary migration programs that assume temporary migrants will return home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recruitment of skilled foreign workers is becoming increasingly important to many industrialized countries. This paper examines the factors motivating the sponsorship and temporary migration of skilled workers to Australia under the temporary business entry program, a new development in Australia's migration policy. The importance of labor demand in the destination country in stimulating skilled temporary migration is clearly demonstrated by the reasons given by employers in the study while the reasons indicated by skilled temporary migrants for coming to work in Australia show the importance of both economic and non-economic factors in motivating skilled labor migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the assimilation hypothesis for young adult first-and second-generation immigrants in Australia. Models of the total weeks of unemployment and the number of spells of unemployment are examined as indicators of relative labor market conditions. The study differs from earlier work by focusing on young first- and second-generation immigrants and by utilizing information over four consecutive years of the Australian Longitudinal Survey (ALS) data, a comprehensive data set compiled for 1985-1988. The results consistently indicate that even when controlling for qualifications, both first-and second-generation immigrants are at a disadvantage. The results, however, support the hypothesis of declining disadvantage, as second-generation immigrants and those with more years in Australia had significantly more favorable conditions than recent immigrants both overall and within country of origin groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the paper The Impact of Long-Term Visitor Migration on Projections of Australia's Population by P. McDonald and R. Kippen, which appeared in the 2002 issue of the journal International Migration.