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Welfare Recipient Patterns Among Migrants

Effects of time spent in Australia on welfare recipient levels

It is a serious matter that just on one in every five Australian and UK-born men in the 45-64 age group shown in Table 5 was receiving a welfare benefit in 1996. This reflects the much discussed difficulties faced by older men in the Australian workforce.

In the case of the large Greek and Former Yugoslav Republics' population, at least one in every three men in the 45-64 age group was in receipt of welfare assistance as of 1996.

As with other men in this situation (including the 22 per cent of all Australia-born men), these Greek and other overseas-born men are clearly in no position to save for their retirement. They will need assistance for the rest of their lives.

It is likely that the higher welfare-recipient levels amongst the Southern and Eastern European-born men reflects the fact that few possess the post-school qualifications or the kind of work experience which would allow them to compete for jobs in the high growth sectors of the economy. Many of the jobs they performed when they arrived, such as low skilled process workers in the automobile assembly and parts industries, have been automated or the products of the industries in question are now being imported.

Table 5 - Welfare recipient rates for males and females aged 45-64, by major birthplace

Most of the focus in this section has been on men. But, as noted above, for some groups of female migrants, extra time in Australia leads to higher rather than lower welfare-recipient levels. Also the overall welfare-recipient levels for women are much higher than for men, especially in the older age groups. Both Tables 4 and 5 makes this point clearly.

The tables also show that welfare-recipient rates for women are much higher for the EP3 and EP4 categories than for Australia-born, EP1 and EP2 category birthplaces.

Female welfare-recipient rates mirror those of their male counterparts. If a male partner is unemployed (perhaps because of lack of English) it is likely that his female partner will experience similar labour market difficulties. In addition, as noted earlier, females have a wider range of benefits and pensions that they can access (as shown in Table 6), including (in 1996) the Age Pension at age 60.