New settlers have their say - How immigrants fare over the early years of settlement

Executive Summary

Introduction

The key objective of this report is to document the experiences and activities of immigrants during their early settlement years in Australia. Seven broad areas are discussed: labour market experiences, English language skills, income, housing, sponsorship of relatives, health status, and satisfaction with life in Australia.

Past research has emphasised the fact that the visa eligibility category under which immigrants enter Australia is closely related to outcomes and activities. Thus, special attention is given in this report to how the observed results vary across five visa categories - Preferential Family, Concessional Family, Business Skills and Employer Nomination Scheme, Independent, and Humanitarian.

To undertake this study, three waves of data from the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia (LSIA) were used. The cohort represented by the LSIA are offshore visaed principal applicants (i.e., the person upon whom the approval to migrate to Australia was based) who arrived in Australia between September 1993 and August 1995. The three waves of the LSIA cover the first 3.5 years of life in Australia for these immigrants.

The analyses presented in this report relate only to principal applicants (and not to family members who may have migrated with the principal applicant).

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