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MIGRANT STATISTICS

OBJECTIVES

The Migrant Statistics program aims to understand and support high priority emerging needs for migrant statistics by providing relevant statistical solutions, including analysis, to inform policy and research in relation to migrants. Key elements of the program include the three-yearly Characteristics of Recent Migrants Survey and data integration projects that use statistical techniques to link Department of Social Services (DSS) migrant settlement information with other important datasets such as the Census of Population and Housing and Australian Taxation Office (ATO) personal income tax records. These data integration projects are cost efficient and provide new insights about the settlement outcomes of migrants.

The activities of the Migrant Statistics program are led by the National Migrant Statistics Unit, and are delivered through collaboration with many areas of the ABS which contribute statistics for migrants including the Household Surveys, Labour, Demography and Census areas. A key component of the program is the outposting of an ABS officer to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP).

The major stakeholders of the program are DIBP and DSS and various other Australian, state and territory government agencies which provide services to migrants and ethnic groups.

OUTPUTS

The main outputs and activities of the program are:

• the Australian Census and Migrants Integrated Dataset, which can be accessed as microdata in TableBuilder (cat. no. 3417.0.55.001) or summary tables (cat. no. 3417.0)
• research papers which explain new statistical work (e.g. data integration quality studies) undertaken to improve the range and quality of migrant data available to users
• Migrant Data Matrices (cat. no. 3415.0), which provides a portal to help users find and access data about migrants from the one location on the ABS website
• Characteristics of Recent Migrants, Australia (cat. no. 6250.0), which provides survey data on the labour force characteristics of recent migrants and temporary visa holders
• Perspectives on Migrants (cat. no. 3416.0), a series of articles which provide analysis of migrant data from ABS and other sources
• statistical activities aimed at promoting and developing national standards such as frameworks, classifications and definitions e.g. Standards for Statistics on Cultural and Language Diversity (cat. no. 1289.0)
• coordination and specification of statistical data needs through consultation with data users and, where appropriate, undertaking development work to meet those needs
• coordination of ABS activity to ensure that issues relevant to migrants are taken into account in statistical development activities.

• develop an ongoing linked data series using ATO personal income tax records and DSS migrant settlement records to produce new statistics on recent migrants in terms of their personal income - the first statistical publications from this dataset will be released in the latter half of 2015
• continue to build collaborative working arrangements with users and producers of migrant statistics - ongoing
• develop a linked dataset using DIBP temporary visa holders administrative records and Census records to inform policy and research on the characteristics of temporary visa holders resident in Australia at the time of the 2011 and 2016 Census - ongoing
• commence planning and development of linkage strategies for the 2016 Australian Census and Migrants Data Integration Project - ongoing
• influence the content of ABS collections with a view to the inclusion of topics which are of most interest and highest priority to migrant statistics stakeholders - ongoing
• review migrant related standards and increase the coherence of migrant statistical sources through the development and adoption of relevant standards - ongoing.