Welfare Recipient Patterns Among Migrants

Introduction

This report provides a detailed analysis of welfare-benefit and pension-recipient levels for all Australians as of late 1996. Most of the detail concerns breakdowns of recipient levels for major country-of-birth communities born overseas by time of arrival in Australia and by sex and age group.

One purpose of the research is to assist in policy deliberations concerning migrant selection — with particular reference to the implications of age at time of arrival in Australia for welfare assistance provided by the Commonwealth Government.

Another purpose is to provide background information on levels of welfare need to officers within the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) who are responsible for planning settlement services.

As we note below, there have been no previous studies of migrant welfare needs which have had access to comparable data on both welfare recipients and the base population potentially eligible for the welfare services in question by time of arrival in Australia.