Economics - Theses
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ItemThree essays on skilled migration to Australia( 2018)This thesis contains three essays on diverse aspects of skilled migration in Australia. The first chapter uses novel administrative data to analyse the extent of out-migration for Australian permanent migrants across different skill measures and cohorts using survival data methods. The use of this dataset reduces estimation biases inherent in cross-sectional or panel datasets used in previous studies. This study finds that migrants from high-income countries are more likely to out-migrate than those from low-income countries. The analyses also indicate that out-migration is sensitive to the business cycle, as measured by the unemployment rate. However, out-migration is the highest for high-skilled migrants, with every year of education increases the hazard rate by around 4 percent. Moreover, migrants targeted by skill-based policies are more likely to leave. These results, therefore, highlight challenges in retaining skilled migrants recruited through points-based policies. The second chapter uses linked administrative and panel datasets to study associations between skilled temporary worker flows and the labour market outcomes of Australian workers. It finds no statistically significant negative effect of such migration on the either their wages or unemployment. However, the analysis reports a positive association between the wages of workers with a bachelor’s degree or above and skilled temporary worker flows. Further analysis studies how temporary migration induces occupational switching. Highlighting a possible channel through which immigration affects labour market outcomes, our results indicate that such migration induces Australian workers to specialise in communication skills. Focussing on a specific high-skilled occupation, medical practitioners, the third chapter enhances empirical evidence on policies aimed at resolving rural workforce shortages by evaluating the impact of the Districts of Workforce Shortage program, which restricts International Medical Graduates (IMGs) to under-served rural and remote areas of Australia. The analysis uses a difference-in-differences design to find that the program is effective at reducing the growth of inequality in affected regions. It also studies changes in medical workforce outcomes to finds a corresponding fall in workload measures, such as working hours or waiting times. However, no robust evidence of a fall in price measures, such as consultation fees or bulk billing rates, is observed. Last, there is suggestive evidence that the fall in workload, particularly in hours, is higher for IMGs. This finding highlights possible imperfect substitutability of natives and migrants even in narrow occupational groups.