P. N. Junankar

Do Migrants Get Good Jobs in Australia? The Role of Ethnic Networks in Job Search

We study the role of ethnic networks in migrants’ job search and the quality of jobs they find in the first years of settlement. We find that there are initial downward movements along the occupational ladder, followed by improvements. As a result of restrictions in welfare eligibility since 1997, we study whether this increases the probability that new migrants accept “bad jobs” quickly and then move onto better jobs over time. Holding employability constant, our results support this view. However, accounting for their higher employability, new migrants seem to fare better up to a year and half after settlement.

Unemployment and Mortality in England and Wales: A Preliminary Analysis

In recent years a furious debate has raged in medical and health journals about the harmful effects of unemployment. Except for a few forays by economists, the debate has been between psychologists, epidemiologists, demographers and sociologists (see Smith (1985), Brenner (1979), Brenner and Mooney (1982), Stern (1983), Gravelle et al (1981), Moser et al. (1981, 1986, 1987), Warr (1983) and Platt (1982)). In this debate the general finding is that unemployment is a particularly stressful state which leads to physical and mental illness and, in extreme cases, to suicide, para-suicide or death. Economists, however, have taken issue on statistical grounds and dispute the findings: they argue that the verdict should be at best ‘not-proven’. The aim of this paper is to provide a preliminary analysis of the relationship between unemployment and mortality using some limited data from the OPCS. The conclusions of this work are that there is a positive association between unemployment and mortality.

The Costs of Unemployment in Australia

The authors wish to thank the participants of the seminar at the Office of Economic Planning Advisory Council for helpful comments and discussions on an earlier version of this paper. The paper has also benefited from comments provided by participants at the Annual Conference of Economists held at the University of Melbourne, and at the Economics seminar at the Research School of Social Sciences, ANU. We thank Bill Mudd for providing excellent research assistance. This research was supported by the Office of Economic Planning Advisory Council. The views expressed are those of the authors and not those of the Office of EPAC.

The Dynamics of Unemployment: Structural Change and Unemployment Flows

In this paper we attempt to explain the inflows onto and the outflows from the unemployment stock. In spite of great interest in explaining unemployment, very little work has been done using time series data on flows.1 It is useful to think of the labour market as being in a perpetual state of flux with people moving from job to job, from jobs to unemployment and from unemployment to jobs. An analysis of flows allows us to study the dynamics of the labour market and provides us with useful insights which may be clouded by studying unemployment stocks. Our model explaining the flows is based on cost-minimising firms and individuals searching for jobs.2 We postulate an economy consisting of two types of firms: expanding firms that hire and declining firms that fire. Changes in aggregate demand, tastes and technology lead to changes in the distribution of firms and hence to the flows. Section I considers the empirical specification and discusses the results for Great Britain for the period 1967 (III) to 1980(II). To anticipate our results we find that inadequate aggregate demand is a crucial determinant of the growth of unemployment in Britain.

Factors influencing women's empowerment on microcredit borrowers: a case study in Bangladesh

Womens empowerment in relation to microcredit programmes is a prominent issue in the literature of microcredit. Not only the founder of the Grameen Bank is awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize on the microcredit programme of Bangladesh but it has also been a topic of great interest to researchers since its introduction in mid-1970s. This study views womens empowerment from an emancipation perspective. The study uses quasi-experimental approach to compare womens empowerment between microcredit borrowers and non-borrowers. Using control-group method (non-borrowers from non-programme villages), this study identifies factors that influence womens empowerment. It also examines the impact on womens empowerment of borrowers having different levels of income. Results show that non-borrowers are equally empowered as microcredit borrowers. It has also been found that age and education levels of women are significant factors in such an empowerment.

Immigration, Wages and Price Stability

Once again immigration is on the political agenda. People are questioning the wisdom, on economic, political, cultural and environmental grounds, of having a large-scale immigration program. This report investigates only one aspect of the economic dimension of this issue. Our study considers the issue of immigration and wage and price inflation. This is a daunting task as economists have struggled with explaining the determinants of inflation over (especially) the last two decades. Numerous theories have been propounded; several have been confronted with data from Australia to Zambia, however no clear consensus has emerged. We still have at least two strong contenders for the centre stage: firstly, some version of an augmented Phillips curve, and secondly, some version of a cost-push theory, e.g. real wage resistance, commodity prices (these two contenders are not necessarily mutually exclusive).

Do Migrants Succeed in the Australian Labour Market: Further Evidence on Job Quality

While the Coalition Government was in power in Australia from 1996 to 2007, new immigrants have had to face tougher selection criteria and increased financial pressure. Most studies so far have overlooked the issue of the quality of the jobs obtained by new immigrants to Australia and whether the policy change has contributed to improve or worsen job quality among immigrants and their ability to move upward. Job quality is thought to be related to the channels of information used by immigrants in their job search. Some studies suggest that jobs found via networks of same origin migrants are of lower quality. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we investigate the effect of time since settlement on the ability of migrants to better their labour market outcomes. Second, we quantify the relationships between job quality and migrants’ job search methods and test whether they were affected by the policy changes. Using the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Australia (LSIA), we estimate the probabilities for immigrants to find “good jobs”, controlling for their initial employability upon arrival in Australia. We test several models involving various definitions of “good job”, from objective conditions, based on the nature and status of the occupation, to more subjective conditions based on job satisfaction. We show that the sole effect of being a second cohort migrant is beneficial for the probability to both find a job and a “good job” within the first year and half after settlement. After this time, cohort two migrants who still have not found a good job experience more difficulty to improve. Moreover, informal channels of information on job prospects have been slightly more efficient in enabling second cohort migrants to find good jobs, even though they still provide individuals with a disadvantage compared to formal channels.

Tests of the Profit-Maximisation Hypothesis: A Study of Indian Agriculture

The aim of this paper is to compare the behaviour of small and large farms, and tenant and owner farms, using a ‘Restricted Profit Function’ approach. I shall use econometric techniques to test whether different groups of farmers maximise profits to the same extent and whether there are any differences in their technical efficiency. The data used are from the Farm Management Studies for the Ferozepur district of Punjab for 1969/70. In this section I shall outline some of the arguments that have been put forward to suggest that different groups of farmers behave differently and/or do not face the same technological constraints. In Section II, I shall outline the restricted profit function approach and distinguish between technical, price and economic efficiency. Section III is a discussion of the data being used in this paper and some conceptual problems of measurement. In Section IV I present the econometric results and discuss the limitations of the restricted profit function approach. Finally, Section V concludes the paper with some remarks on the appropriateness of a competitive profit-maximising model as applied to the agricultural sector of a less developed country such as India.

Recent Immigrants and Housing

Immigration is part of Australia’s past economic development and growth. Equally, housing an expanding population—and the style in which it is housed—has been a keystone of the ‘Australian Dream’. Nonetheless, changing circumstances in the labour and housing markets, and the recasting of views concerning Australia’s defence needs and geographic constraints—including the cost to the environment of greater numbers—has led to concern about large scale immigration. These concerns are often voiced in the form of the following questions: How do new immigrants fare in the housing market? Do they affect the housing choices of resident Australians? Do prices rise in response to an increase in immigration?

Projections of Long-term Unemployment

Australia now has a considerable unemployment problem. One of the most important and least visible consequences of a deep recession is a large and expanding pool of people who have been unemployed for a long period of time. This is a crucial issue which has in the past been accorded less weight in policy discussion than is warranted.