Abstract
Despite the potential for government employment policies both to encourage and preclude migration among the Aboriginal workforce, little is known about the impacts of such policies. This paper seeks to construct a base line for identifying these impacts by establishing the spatial structure of labour migration among the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population. It makes use of 1986 Census data to describe the volume and pattern of net and gross flows of working-age Aborigines and Islanders through the national settlement system, distinguishing between movements in remote and closely settled parts of the country. Full determination of the links between policy and migration flows awaits comparison with 1991 Census results.
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An earlier version of this paper was presented at a Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research seminar in October 1991. I would like to thank Jon Altman and Will Sanders for comments on an early draft, Bruce Illingworth of the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the Census tabulations and ATSIC for providing funds to obtain the data.
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Taylor, J. Aboriginal migration and labour market programs. Journal of Population Research 9, 53–71 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03029549
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03029549