Immigrant settlement in country areas

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Immigrant settlement in country areas

Ian Gray
Associate Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Charles Sturt University, NSW

Peter F Dunn
Director (CSU Site), Australian Rural Health Research Institute, NSW

Bernadette Kelly
Centre for Rural Social Research, Charles Sturt University, NSW

Christopher J Williams
Department of Social Work and Community Welfare, James Cook University, QLD

PP: 011 - 012

Keywords

NESB, service agency, immigrant settlers

Article Text

The following extract is the Executive Summary of a report prepared for the Bureau of Immigration Research. Immigrant Settlement in Country Areas was co-authored by Ian Gray, Peter Dunn and Bernadette Kelly, all of the Centre for Rural Social Research, with Chris Williams of James Cook University's Cairns campus.

Introduction

The economic and social problems which make settlement in rural areas difficult for immigrants of Non-English Speaking Background (NESB) are the same as those which make remaining in rural areas difficult for many country people, except that problems are exacerbated by fewer opportunities to acquire necessary skills, notably language, and by lack of recognition and assistance from service agencies.

The needs of immigrants settling in rural areas are basically similar to those of people who settle in cities, but social structures and relations entered during settlement are different, as are conditions affecting service delivery. In particular, immigrants who choose to settle in rural areas are likely to be isolated from large urban concentrations of ethnic groups, and to be offered few or no services aimed at meeting their specific needs.

The small quantity of previous research suggests that the special problems of rural immigrants arise from the vulnerability of the local and regional rural economy, social and geographical isolation, and a lack of accessible services, especially appropriate language education.

Research Methods

A pilot survey was undertaken to explore key elements in the settlement process in rural areas. The elements covered include movement, employment, accommodation, language, networks and social support, and the availability and use of services.

The survey had two phases. The first sought information from local non-government and government service agencies about immigrant settler populations and services provided to them. The second phase gathered data from migrants themselves about their settlement experience.

Five sites were chosen for the survey. They were the Cities of Wagga Wagga and Griffith and the Shire of Tumut in New South Wales, and the Shires of Johnstone, Atherton, Eacham and Mareeba in North Queensland. The last three were studied as one site.

The first phase of the survey involved between 6 and 8 interviews with local agency staff at each site, providing 37 interviews with agencies in all. Agencies included State and Federal government and non-government organisations. Local rather than official views were sought from them.

In the second phase of the survey, interviews were conducted with 110 migrants from 22 countries of birth. Ninety-eight of the immigrants interviewed had arrived in Australia in or since 1985. Sixty-eight were women.

Research Results

Results from the migrant survey phase showed that almost a quarter of respondents had no employed person in their household, while almost a fifth had no person in their household who spoke good English. Three-quarters of respondents had encountered at least one of the settlement problems identified in this phase of the research. These included difficulty finding work and accommodation, problems with shopping, transport, obtaining information and making friends.

The survey revealed that NESB immigrants tend to move to the country for predominantly family reasons and, after arrival, develop often dense social networks upon which they become dependent. For example, those without prearranged employment and accommodation tended to have difficulty finding these basic essentials.

From its analysis of settlement processes, the study concludes that NESB migrants are disadvantaged in rural areas due to several factors. These include the volatility of the rural economy, the compounding of isolation (NESB people are socially and geographically isolated within communities which are themselves isolated) and diminished opportunity arising from a lack of accessible services.

The survey also found a lack of knowledge amongst service providers about NESB people, their needs and appropriate services, and a lack of contact and information flow among agencies, and between NESB people and agencies. At the same time, government and non-government services had not played a prominent role in the settlement of immigrants.

Services appropriate to NESB settlement are sparse, largely due to rural centres' inability to generate the 'critical mass' of potential clients demanded by agencies.

While a widespread lack of awareness of the presence of immigrants and their needs was found among agencies, there was much variation in the levels of awareness within and among the areas studied. Those agencies in areas which have had a long-term immigrant presence are more likely to be aware of immigrant needs, but they may also see the established groups as self- supporting and remain unaware of other more recently arrived groups.

Agencies raised themes similar to the findings of the migrant survey regarding migrant settlement problems, such as employment and accommodation, although isolation may be more prominent as local agency staff are more aware of the greater range of services offered in the metropolitan centres.

Policies

The government policies above all others which affect the success of migrant settlement in country areas are those which impinge on rural economic growth and decline. Policies which either help to attract industry to rural areas, or maintain employment in cities rather than country towns, are those which most affect the prospects for rural immigrant settlement. Innovative approaches to enable entry into viable agriculture along with diversification of the economic bases of rural areas are needed.

Those areas which are in decline or have little prospect for growth also have weaker prospects for reaching a 'critical mass' immigrant population which would, to agencies, justify provision of the services which help make settlement successful. The combination of critical mass definition and rural economic and population decline is the most important barrier to provision of services to rural immigrants.

Services

The scattering of migrant settlement across rural areas makes the monitoring of needs and the provision and evaluation of services problematic. The greatest problem, however, is raised by the critical mass issue. The study does not attempt to assess what the critical mass for service provision should be, but it does note that a flexible approach to planning for rural services is required. Rural Australia exhibits great heterogeneity across all factors which impinge on service delivery, including population density and relative need. The factors above all others which create this heterogeneity are economic variation, decline and volatility. Those rural areas which rely for prosperity on agriculture, which covers most settlements of inland Australia, are suffering economic contraction.

Many rural centres rely on a very narrow range of industry. Even those country towns whose industry is currently prosperous are vulnerable to International markets and can face accelerated decline after relatively small price changes.

Two types of services are needed: those which help to stimulate economic activity and those which help immigrants to meet their needs during settlement. The current reduction in such services militates against the fulfilment of access and equity goals.

Policies and administrative arrangements which affect information transfer between clients, local and central offices of agencies and among agencies are also problematic. Needs-based planning, while in principle desirable, should not be centralised. The heterogeneity of economic and demographic change in rural Australia necessitate that local input be made to planning.

Such planning would best be carried out through locally coordinated agencies cooperating with central agencies. However, the survey of agencies found that interagency communication was often weak.

This demands improved local interagency arrangements, based on local government, and communication arrangements set down in agreements between local government and central agencies. State and Federal governments may have to take educative rather than directive roles in this process. Heterogeneity and the necessity for current local input also render centralised evaluation of programs inappropriate. Evaluation criteria and procedures in one rural situate might not be appropriate to another, especially where the immigrant population changing.

Systems for provision of basic data, for example, should be sufficiently flexible to provide data where migrant populations are small and rapidly changing. Arrangements for communication and cooperation among governments and agencies can help to provide for evaluation.

Conclusion

The study concludes that migrant settlement in rural areas raises a number of specific problems, despite the needs of migrants being, at a basic level, similar to those of migrants who settle in the metropolitan centres. Comparative research would help analysis of the differences, and suggest way: in which policies and programs, designed without rural-urban differences and rural heterogeneity in mind, could be modified to provide flexibility that rural service provision demands.

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