ABORIGINAL MIGRATION TO THE CITIES

ABORIGINAL MIGRATION TO THE CITIESAuthor(s): Alan GraySource: Journal of the Australian Population Association, Vol. 6, No. 2 (November 1989), pp.122-144Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41110571 .

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Journal of the Australian Population Association Vol. 6, No. 2, 1969

ABORIGINAL MIGRATION TO TEE CITIES

Alan Gray National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health,

The Australian National University, GPO Box 4, Canberra, ACT 2601

SUMMARY

Aboriginal migration to the cities is frequently assumed to be adding to the population of urban Aborigines. An analysis of actual patterns of Aboriginal migration to the large Australian cities (major urban areas), using data from the 1981 and 1986 Australian Censuses, shows that the major urban areas of New South Wales and Victoria mere actually losing Aboriginal population through net migration throughout the period 1976 to 1986. At both inter-State level and country- to-city level, any Aboriginal migration flow in one direction tends to be almost cancelled out by a flow of similar size in the opposite direction. However, there are definite age-specific patterns. In particular, there is movement of young single adults to the cities, often counter- balanced by migration of somewhat older adults with their children to the country. Aboriginal migrants have higher levels of labour-force participation than equivalent categories of non-migrants.

Introduction

The Australian Aboriginal population is reputed to have high mobility, both in remote parts of the country and in the closely- settled areas of south-eastern Australia. The reputation carries with it several stereotyped views about the nature of this migratory movement, but many local studies of the actual characteristics of Aboriginal migratory movement emphasize that it is a complex and purposeful phenomenon (see for example Young, 1981, 1982).

There have been few national analyses of Aboriginal migration. Broom and Jones (1973: 48-52) were unable to determine clear patterns from Australian census data up to 1966, while Smith (1980a: 252) thought that he was able to discern from 1971 Census data that while net inter-State movements of Aboriginal population had been small in the 1966-1971 period, there had been a considerable level of migration into major urban areas occurring at that time. The same conclusion about high levels of movement into major urban areas was reached from local studies, for example those of Brown et al. (1974), for Brisbane, and Gale (1972), for Adelaide. What both Smith's and the local studies found, in fact, was that high proportions of Aboriginal residents of major urban areas were recent migrants. As will be seen in this article, this observation does not necessarily imply a high level or increase or urban Aboriginal population through migration because there can be out-migration from urban areas as well as in-migration.

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Smith (1980b) discussed Aboriginal urbanization by referring to two possible courses of development: the first was the establishment of "new Black Towns", a reference to the first attempt in 1814 at setting up an Aboriginal township in Australia by Governor Macquarie at what is now the suburban Blacktown area of Sydney; and the second was the establishment of "black New Towns", a reference to the recent concentration of Aboriginal people in inner-city suburbs like Newtown, or more especially Redfern, in Sydney.

Identifying the issues about Aboriginal migration at a national level is not easy, when so little work has been done on the subject. With the exception of work by Smith (1980a) and Scott and Company (1973), using mainly 1971 Census data, even the volume and age distribution of migratory movement has been little described except in small-scale studies. Partly this has been because few data have been available from Australian census or any other sources on the subject. One problem is that successive Australian censuses give vastly inconsistent estimates of the size of the Aboriginal population, so it is not possible to simply compare numbers or even proportions of Aboriginal people in a place at different points of time and reach conclusions about net migration.

One of the key issues in a useful discussion of Aboriginal migration is the supposed emergence of urban Aborigines . There does not appear to have been any serious attempt to explore what is meant by this term. While it is obvious that we could adopt a definition of "urban Aborigines" that was based on census classification of areas as urban or non-urban, and residence in these areas, it is just as clear that such a definition would be quite discordant with the notions that underlie most use of the term.

In the public stereotype, urban Aborogines are outspoken and forthright where their country cousins are not; they are only part Aboriginal; they are expert players of the welfare system and the beneficiaries of government largesse; and they are rapidly increasing in numbers. The word urban has one sense in everyday usage, based on the common understanding of the terms "city" and "country" in Australia, and a different official sense. The term urban in colloquial use corresponds to the colloquial usage of city contrasted to country, and an urban area in this usage is very close to the Australian census definition of a major urban area, which is a contiguous population cluster of 100,000 people or more. In the 1986 Census in Australia, the only major urban areas were Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, the Central Coast of New South Wales, Geelong, the Gold Coast straddling the Queensland and New South Wales border, Hobart, Melbourne, Newcastle, Perth, Sydney and Wollongong; Towns ville in Queensland was slightly too small to qualify, and Darwin in the Northern Territory was considerably too small.

It is in the sense of residents of major urban areas, more than anything else, that the term urban Aboriginal is generally understood. While country towns are all classified as "urban" in the census definition, their Aboriginal residents are certainly not included in common understanding of the term urban Aborigines: many of them formerly lived on nearby missions and reserves or still live on former reserves and fringe settlements that have become incorporated into the

123



country towns concerned. There are other country centres that have become destination areas for Aboriginal settlement from further away, and the Aboriginal residents of some of the larger towns in this category might indeed share some characteristics with the urban Aborigines of the larger cities.

It is not difficult to find inconsistencies in the stereotypes about urban Aborigines. If it is true that urban Aborigines are rapidly increasing in numbers, then they must be coining from somewhere else and so they must share much in common with Aboriginal people in the country areas from which they have come: but the stereotype insists that urban Aborigines are different from Aboriginal people in the country. The existence of such inconsistencies could be used to attack the stereotypes on logical grounds, but ingrained attitudes of prejudice have very little to do with logic and very little to do with sound analytical models. This much is pointed out here only to emphasize that a programme of analysis of Aboriginal migration patterns should in the first instance be mainly descriptive.

A considerable amount is known from census data about the differences between urban (major urban) Aborigines and Aborigines in other parts of Australia (other urban and rural Aborigines). What has not been examined very closely is the detail about the characteristics of Aboriginal migration to and from the major urban areas, that is about the provenance of urban Aboriginal people.

Indeed, the primary objective of this article is simply to describe the flows of rural to urban (major urban) Aboriginal migrants and inter-State migrants, using data from the 1986 and 1981 Censuses in Australia. For the purposes of the article, a migrant is defined in terms of change of usual residence between the dates of two successive censuses, and even then only in terms of States and Territories, city areas (major urban) and country areas (all other areas grouped together). Darwin has been included as a city, although it is not major urban in the census definition, and Queanbeyan in New South Wales has been included with the Australian Capital Territory as one city area, not strictly correctly since the ACT also includes the small rural Aboriginal community of Wreck Bay.

It must be admitted at the outset that the resultant picture of Aboriginal migration is limited. There can be important migration which is of much shorter duration than five years and circular, which will not be noticed at all by this type of analysis. There can be migration within a single major urban area, particularly the types of migration which might take an Aboriginal family out of a concentration of Aboriginal households and remove it to a suburban setting, the final link of a supposed chain of movement from the country to the city through a place like Redfern. There can be migration between country towns and rural settlements, for instance the considerable movement of Aboriginal people through Alice Springs to and from Aboriginal communities in Central Australia. All of these interesting and important phenomena are ignored in this analysis» So is lifetime migration.

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Inter-State Migration

In order to give a very broad picture of inter-State migration patterns in the ten year period between 1976 and 1986, Table 1 has been set out in the form of matrices of usual residence of the enumerated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in 1976 and 1981, in the first panel of the table, and in 1981 and 1986, in the second panel. The levels of enumeration of the Aboriginal population in the two parts of the table are inconsistent, because the first part was derived from 1981 Census data and the second from 1986 Census data, and the two Censuses give inconsistent estimates of Aboriginal population size.

The table does not include all of the enumerated Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations in 1981 and 1986. This is mainly because, of the total enumerated, substantial numbers were aged younger than five years and for these children no migration can have been possible under the definitions used in this article; they have been excluded from the table. Of the remainder, six per cent in 1981 and four per cent in 1986 did not state what their usual residence was either at the start or at the end of the five-year period, ot said they were resident overseas.1 These have also been excluded from the table. This leaves 130,642 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 5 years or more in 1981, and 187,542 in 1986, for whom there are stated States and Territories of residence for both the Census year and five years earlier.

The volume of inter-State migration shown in the table is quite clearly small. In 1981, only 5,520 or 42 per thousand of the total shown had changed their State or Territory of residence since 1976, and in 1986 the proportion was not much higher, 51 per thousand (9,651 persons). While this does suggest a slightly greater incidence of inter-State movement in the more recent period, there is the possibility that the apparent effect is due not to migration but to differential inclusion of categories of people more likely to the inter-State migrants. However, a similar analysis of 1971 Census data, using information published by the Bureau of Census and Statistics (1973: 3), shows that the corresponding percentage was only 33 per thousand for the 1966 to 1971 period. This additional piece of evidence is probably sufficient to conclude, safely, that the volume and prevalence2 of Aboriginal inter-State movement between census dates has been increasing, from a very low base and rather slowly.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the small inter-State movement shown in the table is its apparent inefficiency in effecting any redistribution of the Aboriginal population. Almost every flow from one State to another is almost totally balanced by a flow of similar magnitude in the reverse direction. The largest flows for the 1981- 1986 period are between New South Wales and Queensland, in both directions, but these do not result in any substantial net gain to either State. These large volumes are of course the result of large Aboriginal population size in these two States rather than high prevalence of recent migration. In fact, expressed relative to population size the only area to have high prevalence is the Australian Capital Territory, which had in-migration prevalences of

125



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417 and 384 per thousand for 1976-1981 and 1981-1986, and out- migration prevalences of 208 and 310 for the same periods, resulting in substantial net gain relative to the small size of the Territory's population. The main sources for these population gains were New South Wales and Queensland.

Victoria is the only other State to show in- and out-migration prevalences consistently more than 100 per thousand population, but in this case the movement is almost totally inefficient with tiny net results in each period. New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia all lost Aboriginal population through migration in each period, while South Australia, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory all gained in each of the two periods.

In the only previous analysis of Aboriginal inter-State migration, for the 1966 to 1971 period, Smith (1980b: 252) also noted that New South Wales and Queensland both lost Aboriginal population, but that few of the net changes exceeded 50 persons. In fact, some movement into the Australian Capital Territory probably did start towards the end of this period with the establishment of the Office (later Department) of Aboriginal Affairs. It no doubt accelerated in the 1971 to 1976 period, for which no comparable data exist, culminating in the rapid population increase from migration during 1976-1986 due to employment opportunities in the Commonwealth bureau- cracy. Migration to the Northern Territory was also noted by Smith, with the main source being Western Australia, but in the more recent period the eastern States, Queensland in particular, have been the more substantial sources for Aboriginal migration to the Territory.

The apparent inefficiency of inter-State migratory movement of Aboriginal people may be its most notable characteristic in the limited analysis given so far, but this is partly because the analysis ignores age and sex distributions of migrants. The term inefficient is used here only in the limited sense that Aboriginal inter-State migration does not result in redistribution of the Aboriginal population between States, because most inter-State movements are cancelled out by opposite flows of similar size. It is reasonable to adopt a premise that Aboriginal migration at any level is purposeful and may or may not be efficient in terms of the purposes for which Aboriginal individuals migrate. Since it is unlikely that any individuals migrate just to redistribute the Aboriginal population between the States, an analysis of the efficiency of Aboriginal migration should ideally be at quite a different level from the one that has been introduced here.

One such level is the economic level, of labour force participation and employment, because it is possible that at least a proportion of inter-State migration can be linked to individual reasons for migration that centre on employment opportunities. An analysis of this aspect of Aboriginal migratory movement is deferred to a later section of this article. It is worthwhile first to re-examine broad migratory movements with the addition of patterns of urbanization, and age and sex patterns.

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TABLE 2 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Migration to and from States and City and Country Components,

1981-1986

Migrants Prevalence0

In Out Net In Out

Males: NSW Major urban 1,197 1,369 -172 13.6 15,2

Other 1,475 1,507 -32 9.9 10.1 State 984 1,188 -204 4.1 5.0

Vic Major urban 411 475 -64 17.1 19.2 Other 512 428 84 20.3 17.6 State 508 488 20 10.3 9.9

Qld Major urban 1,008 905 103 22.1 20.3 Other 1,384 1,467 -83 6.7 7.1 State 1,144 1,124 20 4.5 4.5

SA Major urban 589 386 203 27.3 19.7 Other 429 489 -60 12.6 14.1 State 579 436 143 10.4 8.0

WA Major urban 897 684 213 25.5 20.7 Other 837 1,122 -285 7.2 9.4 State 499 571 -72 3,3 3.7

Tas Major urban 158 138 20 23.1 20.8 Other 194 186 8 8.9 8.6 State 148 120 28 5.2 4.2

NT Darwin 481 456 25 26.6 25.5 Other 666 706 -40 5.6 5.9 Territory 635 650 -15 4.6 4.7

ACT & Queanbeyan 260 180 80 37.3 29.2

Total 10,498 10,498 15.4 13.9

Prevalence for in-migration is calculated using as base population the number of people aged 5 years or more whose usual residence in 1986 was in the area shown. Prevalence for out-migration is calculated using as base population the number of survivors of the 1981 population of the area.

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Table 2 [Continued]


In Out Net In Out

Females:

NSW Major urban 1,356 1,420 -64 14.1 14.7 Other 1,552 1,608 -56 10.3 10.6 State 1,094 1,214 -120 4.4 4.9

Vic Major urban 465 527 -62 17.1 19.0 Other 492 449 43 18.8 17.5 State 515 534 -19 9.7 10.0

Qld Major urban 1,011 1,010 1 20.4 20.3 Other 1,391 1,447 -56 6.7 6.9 State 1,125 1,180 -55 4.4 4.6


WA Major urban 951 721 230 24.2 19.5 Other 798 1,139 -341 6.9 9.6 State 447 558 -111 2.9 3.6

Tas Major urban 148 120 28 21.3 18.0 Other 187 175 12 8.8 8.3 State 154 114 40 5.5 4.1

NT Darwin 596 520 76 28.8 26.1 Other 766 765 1 6.0 6.0 Territory 720 643 77 4.9 4.4

ACT & Queanbeyan 268 201 67 39.5 32.8

Total 11,026 11,026 15.3 14.0

a Prevalence for in-migration is calculated using as base population the number of people aged 5 years or more whose usual residence in 1986 was in the area shown. Prevalence for out-migration is calculated using as base population the number of survivors of the 1981 population of the area.

129



Urbanization and the Áge-Sex Pattern of Migration

Tiny net migratory movement is as characteristic of movement between the country and the city as it is of inter-State Aboriginal migration, as is shown in Table 2 for the 1981-1986 period. The table also shows the distribution of migrants by sex.

While the net movements are tiny, the volumes are sizeable, at least relative to the small size of the Aboriginal population, so that in- and out-migration prevalences are quite large for some States and particularly for the major urban areas. The most outstanding example, as would be expected from the analysis of inter-State movements, is the Australian Capital Territory. However, at this level of analysis there are many maj#r urban or other components of in-migration or out-migration that are very large relative to the populations from which they are drawn; below State level, many of the prevalences exceed 100 or even 200 per thousand.

It should be noted that numbers of migrants at State level are not the sums of major urban and other components, because the components include migration within States to and from major urban areas. These intra-State movements generally boost the migration prevalence for both major urban and other areas above the State level.

In both New South Wales and Victoria, the major urban areas actually lost Aboriginal population from net migratory movement between 1981 and 1986, even though more than ten per cent of their populations aged at least five years had migrated in during the period. The major urban areas of all the other States and Territories gained population from net migration, but while the biggest net gains were in Adelaide and Perth they were still not very large. As would be expected from the fact that the cities gained slightly, country areas of most States lost small amounts through net migratory movement, although in Victoria and Tasmania there were modest gains.

It is very important to observe here that the fact that the Aboriginal populations of many urban areas contain very large proportions of recent migrants (more than 20 per cent of the Aboriginal populations aged five years or more of major urban areas of every State except New South Wales and Victoria had arrived within the previous five years) does not imply rapid population increase through migration. This observation has important implications for the conclusions of studies in the 1970s (Gale, 1972; Brown et al., 1974) which discovered large proportions of recent migrants in the populations of some cities and assumed on that basis that Aboriginal population increase through migration must have occurred recently. As in the case of the 1981-1986 period, it is possible that increase resulting from in-migration was largely nullified by out-migration. The generally-accepted notion that the Aboriginal populations of the cities must have increased rapidly during the 1960s must therefore be found to be unproved at best .

There are other things worth remarking here. The most obvious is that in all the major urban areas, Sydney and Melbourne included, the turnover of Aboriginal population through the cities was quite spectacular in the five-year period 1981-1986. Why should this be so?

130



TABLE 3 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Migration to and fro« States and City and Country Components,

1976-1981


In Out Net In Out

Males: NSW Major urban 595 666 -.71 17.2 18.9

Other 843 801 42 7.9 7.6 State 521 550 -29 3.7 3.9

Vic Major urban 214 236 -22 20.6 22.2 Other 219 266 -47 17.0 19.9 State 235 304 -69 10.1 12.7

Qld Major urban 691 497 194 27.1 21 a Other 695 1,038 -343 4.5 6.6 State 574 723 -149 3.2 4.0


WA Major urban 779 440 339 31.5 20.6 Other 630 995 -365 6.0 9.1 State 364 390 -26 2.8 3.0

Tas Major urban 47 47 0 15.6 15.6 Other 68 78 -10 8.0 9¿1 State 48 58 -10 4.2 5.0

NT Darwin 351 192 159 25.6 15.9 Other 408 440 -32 4.0 4.3 Territory 474 347 127 4.1 3.0

ACT & Queanbeyan 165 60 105 39.6 19.2

Total 6,312 6,312 16.7 12.7

a Prevalence for in-migration is calculated using as base population the number of people aged 5 years or more whose usual residence in 1981 was in the area shown. Prevalence for out-migration is calculated using as base population the number of survivors of the 1976 population of the area.

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Table 3 [Continued]


In Out net In Out

Females:

NSW Major urban 739 746 -7 19.1 19.3 Other 906 974 -68 8.4 8.9 State 577 652 -75 3.9 4.4

Vic Major urban 257 202 55 21.4 17.6 Other 194 240 -46 15.2 18.2 State 280 271 9 11.3 11.0

Qld Major urban 725 564 161 26.1 21.6 Other 723 1,016 -293 4.6 6.3 State 607 739 -132 3.3 4.0

SA Major urban 343 255 88 26.5 21.1 Other 278 376 -98 10.1 13.1 State 297 307 -10 7.3 7.5

WA Major urban 867 491 376 31.5 20.6 Other 606 1,030 -424 6.0 9.8 State 317 365 -48 2.5 2.8

Tas Major urban 53 45 8 17.8 15.5 Other 75 86 -11 9.4 10.6 State 58 61 «3 5.3 5.5

NT Darwin 482 203 279 29.7 15.1 Other 399 535 -136 3.8 5.0 Territory 501 358 143 4.1 3.0

ACT & Queanbeyan 185 69 116 43.7 22.5

Total 6,832 6,832 17.7 13.0

Prevalence for in-migration is calculated using as base population the number of people aged 5 years or more whose usual residence in 1981 was in the area shown. Prevalence for out-migration is calculated using as base population the number of survivors of the 1976 population of the area.

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To answer this question requires more information about the pattern of migration and informs most of the rest of the programme of this analysis. Á second point is that the stereotype of rapidly-growing ranks of "urban Aborigines11 in the metropolises of Sydney and Melbourne is so far wrong that in fact these cities were actually losing Aboriginal population through net migration. It is the smaller State capitals that were gaining. The third point is that in a situation of very high turnover of Aboriginal population in the cities, the very notion of an "urban Aboriginal", distinct from his or her country cousins, becomes simply nonsense. We are not just dealing with similar Aboriginal people in the city as in the country, but to a very large extent we are dealing with the same people, at different stages of their lives.

To be quite sure about this last point, it does need to be verified that the 1981 to 1986 period was not just an unusual one. Table 3, for the 1976 to 1981 period but otherwise in exactly the same form as Table 2, shows that almost the same patterns held then as in the more recent period. Disregarding the volumes, which are affected by different levels of census enumeration in 1981, and concentrating purely on the prevalences, it can be seen that the main difference between the two periods was that between 1976 and 1981 the turnover in the cities was apparently slightly greater than in the later period.

If there is turnover, then almost certainly we should expect to be able to locate some age-specific pattern. It is in fact very marked, as is shown in Table 4. In all States, but not the Northern Territory, there is net in-migration to the major urban areas in the 15-24 age group, and corresponding net out-migration from other areas of the States. This is true even in the two States, New South Wales and Victoria, whose major urban areas lost Aboriginal population through net migration between 1981 and 1986. The net outflow was in other age groups. A somewhat similar pattern is seen in Queensland, although not quite as marked and resulting in a positive net inflow in total. Accompanying this pattern in the eastern States is net outflow of children aged 5 to 14, corresponding net inflows to the country areas, and also net inflows to the country areas in the aged groups immediately above age 25.

This pattern in the eastern States suggests only one thing, and that is a characteristic pattern of migration of young adults to the city and return migration of slightly older adults with their young children to the country.

The pattern is different in the other States. While in Adelaide and Perth the 15-24 age group shows the peak volume of net inflow, there is much less evidence for substantial return migration. On the contrary, there is considerable evidence for net in-migration across all the age groups. It needs further investigation, but it is plaus- ible that the reason is to be found in the very active programmes of State housing for Aboriginal people in the metropolitan areas of those two States. The case of Darwin shows less evidence for attraction of young single people to the city but there is a suggestion of movement of young people with children towards the city and again a possible connection with housing programmes.

133



TABLE 4 Migration of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders» Major Sources and Destinations, Age and Sex,

1981-1986

Source or Male Female Destination & Age In Out Net In Out Net

(a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c)

New South Wales major urban (except Queanbeyan) 5-14 313 434 -121 334 401 -67

15-24 443 348 95 517 381 136 25-34 269 328 -59 313 396 -83 35-44 98 161 -63 120 131 -11 45-54 45 65 -20 40 65 -25 55-64 19 19 0 22 32 -10 65+ 10 14 -4 10 14 -4

Total 1,197 1,369 -172 1,356 1,420 -64

New South Wales other 5-14 463 410 53 473 411 62

15-24 395 532 -137 309 614 -205 25-34 323 335 -12 394 322 72 35-44 176 120 56 155 152 3 45-54 75 66 9 63 64 -1 55-64 24 26 -2 37 30 7 65+ 19 18 1 21 15 6

Total 1,475 1,507 -32 1,552 1,608 -56

Victoria major urban 5-14 95 149 -54 102 145 -43

15-24 148 103 45 179 140 39 25-34 104 137 -33 117 151 -34 35-44 37 53 -16 40 53 -13 45-54 17 15 2 18 21 -3 55-64 5 14-9 6 11-5 65+ 5 4 14 6-2

Total 411 475 -64 466 527 -61

Victoria other 5-14 175 109 66 148 117 31

15-24 122 155 -33 132 156 -24 25-34 124 90 34 127 99 28 35-44 53 47 6 47 44 3 45-54 18 15 3 22 21 1 55-64 15 6 9 10 9 1 65+ 5 6-1633

Total 512 428 84 492 449 43

(a) Usual residents in 1986 of the geographical entity shown, who were not usual residents in 1981«

(b) Usual residents in 1986 of any place other than the geographical entity shown, who were usual residents in 1981.

(c) (a)-(b).

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Table 4 [Continued]


(a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c)

Queensland major urban 5-14 287 319 -32 235 313 -78

15-24 318 229 89 372 272 100 25-34 220 186 34 250 258 -8 35-44 112 113 -1 96 102 -6 45-54 34 37 -3 29 37 -8 55-64 24 14 10 14 22 -8 65+ 13 7 6 15 6 9

Total 1,008 905 103 1,011 1,010 1

Queensland other 5-14 445 390 55 423 366 57

15-24 373 504 -131 383 526 -143 25-34 303 307 -4 336 327 9 35-44 160 156 4 150 135 15 45-54 67 62 5 56 49 7 55-64 25 32 -7 35 23 12 65+ 11 16 -5 8 22 -14

Total 1,384 1,467 -83 1,391 1,448 -57

South Australia major urban 5-14 193 123 70 164 134 30

15-24 176 97 79 200 114 86 25-34 134 95 39 146 118 28 35-44 54 47 7 52 35 17 45-54 21 14 7 21 11 10 55-64 7 6 19 6 3 65+ 4 4 0 6 6 0

Total 589 386 203 598 424 174

South Australia other 5-14 137 140 -3 139 118 21

15-24 119 149 -30 116 169 -53 25-34 92 116 -24 110 121 -11 35-44 50 48 2 46 52 -6 45-54 18 19 -1 19 16 3 55-64 7 8 -1 11 11 0 65+ 6 9 -3 6 13 -7

Total 429 489 -60 447 500 -53

(a) Usual residents in 1986 of the geographical entity shown, who were not usual residents in 1981.

(b) Usual residents in 1986 of any place other than the geographical entity shown, who were usual residents in 1981,

(c) (a)-(b).

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Table 4 [Continued]


(a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c)

Western Australia major urban 5-14 257 214 43 256 200 56

15-24 296 203 93 322 230 92 25-34 208 169 39 217 167 50 35-44 74 57 17 66 72 -6 45-54 28 29 -1 48 36 12 55-64 20 7 13 20 12 8 65+ 14 5 9 22 4 18

Total 897 684 213 951 721 230

Western Australia other 5-14 236 331 -95 212 317 -105

15-24 245 365 -120 253 366 -113 25-34 212 251 -39 172 260 -88 35-44 84 105 -21 87 96 -9 45-54 37 31 6 46 54 -8 55-64 11 24 -13 17 26 -9 65+ 12 15 -3 11 20 -9

Total 837 1,122 -285 798 1,139 -341

Tasmania major urban 5-14 48 45 3 48 33 15

15-24 49 44 5 50 39 11 25-34 37 28 9 31 24 7 35-44 18 15 3 12 13 -1 45-54 3 3 0 5 4 1 55-64 1 2-1 2 5-3 65+ 2 110 2-2

Total 158 138 20 148 120 28

Tasmania other 5-14 62 46 16 54 51 3

15-24 50 67 -17 54 68 -14 25-34 54 46 8 57 34 23 35-44 19 17 2 10 17 -7 45-54 7 6 14 3 1 55-64 110 5 2 3 65+ 13-2303

Total 194 186 8 187 175 12

(a) Usual residents in 1986 of the geographical entity shown, who were not usual residents in 1981.


(c) (a)-(b).

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Table 4 [Continued]


(a) (b) (c) (a) (b) (c)

Northern Territory Darwin 5-14 187 141 46 204 140 64

15-24 140 120 20 175 160 15 25-34 81 102 -21 118 132 -14 35-44 44 56 -12 56 44 12 45-54 16 22 -6 29 30 -1 55-64 9 11-2 8 8 0 65+ 4 4 0 6 6 0

Total 481 456 25 596 520 76

Northern Territory other 5-14 201 247 -46 206 252 -46

15-24 185 188 -3 231 220 11 25-34 143 147 -4 186 152 34 35-44 77 66 11 81 84 -3 45-54 32 34 -2 36 32 4 55-64 14 12 2 15 13 2 65+ 14 12 2 11 12 -1

Total 666 706 -40 766 765 1

ACT & Queanbeyan 5-14 59 60 -1 60 60 0

15-24 83 38 45 110 48 62 25-34 77 44 33 49 62 -13 35-44 27 22 5 31 19 12 45-54 11 11 0 15 8 7 55-64 2 2 0 0 1-1 65+ 13-2330

Total 260 180 80 268 201 67

(a) Usual residents in 1986 of the geographical entity shown, who were not usual residents in 1981 .


(c) (a)-(b).

There are two suggested overlapping patterns of urbanization at work here. One seems to be a circular pattern of young single people moving to the city, then returning to the country maybe five to ten years later taking with them their families. This pattern is characteristic of the eastern States. The second pattern appears to be connected with housing, and a more permanent urbanization, and is found in the west, south and north. Both patterns suggest a strong

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economic motivation for migration, and it is this motivation that will now be analysed through examination of labour force participation and employment of migrants and non-migrants.

Some Characteristics of Aboriginal Migrants

It is not possible to use census data to examine all of the reasons for Aboriginal migration to and from the cities. For instance, there must be a strong suspicion that much Aboriginal migration has something to do with family ties, and indeed Gale (1972) found family matters to be very important in her analysis of reasons for migration to Adelaide. Informal contact with Aboriginal people in the cities and in the country quickly leads to the conclusion that there is much short-term movement of people from one place to another for purposes of visiting. It is not clear how much of this short-term movement transforms itself into longer-term or permanent migration, although some certainly does.

Labour force participation and employment is covered reasonably well in census data. If we find an association between migration and participation in the labour force and employment, the association does not necessarily establish a causal connection by any means, and it does not necessarily establish that economic motivations are pre- eminent among reasons for migration. Nevertheless, the existence of an association would signal the possibility that employment opportunities do figure among the factors motivating migration, especially if the association is very strong.

The actual association is rather weak, as is shown in Table 5. The first panel of the table examines labour force participation of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders aged 15 years or more in 1986. The patterns are similar for both sexes, except that female labour force participation is lower than male. There are three notable aspects. In the first place, participation in the labour force is stronger in the city than in the country. In the second place, migrants to the cities from country areas have higher participation rates than people who stay in the country but (as long as they did not move inter-State) lower rates than people who stay in the cities; and conversely for migrants to the country from the cities. And in the third place, inter-State migrants have higher labour force participation rates than the equivalent categories of people who have not moved outside the State in which they were located in 1981.

The combination of these three factors suggests that migration to the city or the country involves some movement towards the participation rates of the destination area, but that inter-State migrants have somewhat higher participation rates. Yet the differences between the lowest and highest participation rates in the table are not extremely large, and some of the differences between categories are certainly due to the fact that labour force participation is age-dependent, and migrants tend to be more heavily clustered in the age groups with higher participation rates. This is shown by the age-standardized rates, between which the differences have been softened considerably compared with the unstandardized rates.

Is it labour force participation that causes migration, migration that causes higher labour force participation, or something else that

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TABLE 5 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders Aged 15 or Over,

1981-1986 Migration, Labour Force Participation, Employment, Marital Status, 1986 Census

Original Age-standardized

Male Female Male Female

Labour force participation (per cent) (a) Non-migrant, city 74 43 73 43 Non-migrant, country 63 33 64 34 Intra-State, country-city 69 42 66 39 Intra-State, city-country 73 39 69 38 Inter-State, city-city 79 48 76 45 Inter-State, country-country 71 40 68 39 Inter-State, country-city 76 46 71 42 Inter-state, city-country 77 42 70 40 Total 67 37 67 37

Employment (per cent) (b) Non-migrant, city 72 76 72 76 Non-migrant, country 62 62 62 62 Inter-State, country-city 59 63 60 65 Intra-State, city-country 60 61 59 61 Inter-State, city-city 71 69 71 68 Inter-State, country-country 61 59 61 60 Inter-State, country-city 67 65 67 66 Inter-State, city-country 62 61 61 59 Total 64 66 64 66

Percentage ever married

Non-migrant, city 42 52 44 52 Non-migrant, country 44 55 43 54 Intra-State, country-city 32 38 38 47 Intra-State, city-country 42 50 44 53 Inter-State, city-city 41 44 39 51 Inter-State, country-country 41 52 43 55 Inter-State, country-city 34 41 39 49 Inter-State, city-country 41 54 42 55 Total 43 53 43 53

(a) Proportion of total population in labour force. (b) Proportion of labour force employed.

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is associated both with higher tendency to migrate and higher labour force participation? The results presented here appear to rule out the last two of these explanations, which seem to be inconsistent with the fact that some categories of migrants, those from the city to the country, actually have lower participation rates than the populations from which they came, especially after standardization for age differences. However, the participation rates are only averages and it is quite possible that the people who move from the city to the country, or country to city for that matter, come from categories with different rates of labour force participation. So, it is not possible to reach any conclusion about the issue from the available data; it is possible only to note the association and to conclude that it is a highly interesting one for further research, whatever its nature.

The middle panel of Table 5 records employment rates for those people who are in the labour force, by the same categories of migration status. Somewhat unexpectedly, perhaps, the pattern is different from the pattern of differentials by labour force status. The only influences that are clearly in the same direction are, first, that country residents have lower employment rates than city residents, just as they also have lower labour force participation, and secondly that the pattern of differentials among migrants is similar both for labour force participation rates and employment rates. The very striking and important difference is that it is dear that migrants generally have lower employment rates than non-migrants. This is not a result of age differences, because the age-standardized rates are in this case almost identical to the unstandardized values.

Lower rates of employment among migrants tend to weaken any advantages conferred by higher labour force participation. However, the combination of labour force participation rates and employment rates does not create a flat distribution of employees per population in the different categories of migration status, because the combination tends to reinforce differentials between the categories of migrants. The impression from the data is rather that recent migration, of any kind, tends to add a margin of unemployment; and this is to be expected because among people who have moved within the previous five years there will be some very recent migrants who have not yet succeeded in obtaining work.

These differentials in labour force participation and employment rates were also disaggregated further . by considering separately the data for Aboriginal people located in*

. the eastern States (New South

Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory) and the data for Aboriginal people in the rest of Australia, in 1986. This disaggregation has not been shown in the tables here, because it is less interesting than might have been expected on the basis of different age-specific patterns discerned earlier in the analysis in this article. The main difference is simply that labour force participation is higher in the east; otherwise the patterns of differentials are similar.

The final panel of Table 5 has been included to confirm one inference that was drawn from analysis of the age distribution. The data in Table 5 show the proportions ever married among different categories of migrants and non-migrants. The differentials are

140



unexceptional except for strikingly lower proportions ever married among country-to-city migrants. This provides indirect confirmation of the supposition that this type of migration contains a large component of young single people who later return home married with young families. Interestingly, the lower proportion of married people among country-to-city migrants persists in attenuated form after age standardization, suggesting that lack of marital ties may play an important part in determining the possibility of young people moving to the city.

Discussion

The primary objective of this analysis was simply to describe the patterns of Aboriginal migration, inter-State and country-to-city. The process of description yielded results which may seem unexpected. In the first place, the major urban areas of New South Wales and Victoria are far from being places with burgeoning populations of new urban Aborigines. They were actually losing Aboriginal population through migration throughout the whole period from 1976 to 1986. This does not, of course, mean that they were actually losing Aboriginal population in absolute terms, because we are taking no account of natural increase from the excess of births over deaths. On the other hand, the pattern of migration also suggests that Aboriginal in-migrants to these areas also take their city-born children home with them when they leave again. So it is safe to conclude that migration from the country is simply not a major factor in the growth of Aboriginal populations in Sydney and Melbourne. Any population growth will have been coming mainly from natural increase within the resident population, and will even have been dampened by the small levels of net out-migration.

This is an entirely sensible conclusion to reach. Aboriginal people are not well-to-do. In the major cities of south-eastern Australia, rents are high, rental housing is not always easy to obtain, and State housing is often far from the city centres. There is a pattern of Aboriginal movement through a fixed stock of housing, often owned by Aboriginal organizations or as special Aboriginal rental housing by State authorities. It may be difficult for Aboriginal people to arrange long-term stay in these cities.

In some of the other States, particularly South Australia and Western Australia, the major urban areas were definitely gaining Aboriginal population throughout the ten-year period 1976-1986. The explanatory hypothesis put forward here is that the reason is to be found in the active programmes of State housing for Aboriginal people carried out in Adelaide and Perth by State Governments.

The analysis serves the useful purpose of demonstrating clearly that Aboriginal migration, at least at the levels dealt with here, is inefficient in the strictly technical sense that it results in very little change in the sizes of Aboriginal populations in different localities. Arrivals balance departures closely in most States and Territories and in most major urban areas.

Inefficient Aboriginal migration may be in this technical sense, but the age pattern of migratory movement suggests a set of purposes

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which operate strongly at individual level. Examination of some of the characteristics of Aboriginal migrants indicates links between migration and economic activity. It would be consistent with the data to contend that young people in the 15-24 age group are drawn to the cities at least partly because of greater employment opportunities» but that many return to the country when they are somewhat older and have responsibility for young children, particularly in the eastern States. Yet because the differentials in labour force participation and employment rates are not extremely large» it seems clear that there are other reasons motivating migration as well.

While it is true that the analysis in this article did detect the existence of associations between economic activity and migration, it is important to stress that this was a result of the fact that there were few other variables available for analysis. Other studies (see for example Young, 1981: 325) have emphasized that employment may be unimportant as a reason» at least in the short-term, for mobility of some groups of Aboriginal people through townships. If it is true that the association between migration and raised unemployment rates is a result of initial job search problems, then it is necessary also to be aware of the implication that Aboriginal mobility could to a considerable extent be contributing to higher unemployment rates among Aboriginal people in the labour force than in the non-Aboriginal labour force. This is very definitely an issue with two sides to it: Aboriginal migrants to or from the country have higher labour force participation than their more sedentary country neighbours, and in many country areas there are few or no job openings, so that although mobility carries risk (in the form of marginally higher unemployment) it is very likely to be a risk that a job-seeker must take if the job search is to be successful.

It is plain that the nature of the data available for this study determined the outcomes to some extent. It is also certain that the process of delineating a set of important reasons for Aboriginal migration, and their relative importance, would require studies that provide more detailed information than is supplied by population censuses» and do so within a framework of theory about the reasons for migration. The problem is that the phenomenon of Aboriginal migration, at a national level» has been so little described that it has been necessary first to undertake what has been essentially an exploratory descriptive analysis, with some hypotheses and suggestions for further study.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to the Australian Bureau of Statistics for data used in the analysis in this article, and to Mr Dan Black and Mr Bruce Illingworth who helped me considerably in completing the analysis and gave valued advice.

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ENDNOTES

1. Proportionately, the number claiming overseas residence is negligible - and it is certainly possible that some or all of them were genuinely Aboriginal, perhaps in some cases with an error having been made in census classification of their place of usual residence. The main editing check on membership of the Aboriginal population in the last two Australian censuses has been a stipulation that any person with both parents born overseas cannot be Aboriginal, and this seems to work adequately in removing misclassifications based on misunderstanding by non- English-speaking migrants.

2. The term prevalence instead of rate is used throughout this article. Migration prevalence refers always to having migrated into or out of the relevant component of the population within the previous five years. However, in-migration prevalence is always expressed relative to the receiving population and out- migration prevalence is always expressed relative to the (surviving) source population. Both measures are per thousand population. Net migration prevalence is not used since there is no satisfactory contender for a denominator for such a measure.

3. Because of restrictions imposed by State Governments, many Aboriginal people were kept out of or forcibly removed from cities and country towns right up until the 1960s in some places. On the other hand, the period of the Second World War saw Aboriginal men from many parts of Australia drawn into paid employment in the towns and cities. And young Aboriginal women as late as the 1960s were working as domestics in well-to-do households in the cities as well as the country, and often staying on in the cities. In Sydney, there has always been an Aboriginal population at the La Perouse reserve. Other Aboriginal people who could "pass11 as white later re-identified themselves as Aboriginal when there was less social advantage in "passing". For these reasons it is difficult even on a priori grounds to reason that there must have been a period in the 1960s or 1970s of rapid Aboriginal population expansion in the cities - with obvious exceptions such as Canberra. The fact that many people, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, believe that such an expansion took place is not a particularly good guide: there are so many myths in the area of Aboriginal demography and population geography that I have previously devoted an article to some of them (Gray, 1985).

REFERENCES

AUSTRALIA (1973), Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Bulletin 9: the Aboriginal Population, Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, Canberra.

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BROOM, L. and JONES, F.L. (1973), A Blanket a Year, Australian National University Press, Canberra.

BROWN, J.W., HIRSCHFIELD, R. and SMITH, D. (1974), Aboriginals and Islanders in Brisbane, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.

GALE, F. (1972), Urban Aborigines, Australian National University Press, Canberra.

GRAY, A. (1985), "Some myths in the demography of Aboriginal Australians", Journal of the Australian Population Association, 2, 2: 136-49.

SCOTT, W.D. and COMPANY (1973), Housing Needs in the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population, Report to the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Canberra.

SMITH, L.R. (1980a), The Aboriginal Population of Australia, Australian National University Press, Canberra.

SMITH, L.R. (1980b), "New black town or black new town: the urbanization of Aborigines", in I.H. BURNLEY, R.J. PRYOR and D.T. ROWLAND (eds), Mobility and Community Change in Australia, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia.

YOUNG, E.A. (1981), "The medium-sized town in the context of mobility: rural-urban linkages and decentralization 'policies", in G.W. JONES and H.V. RICHTER (eds), Population Mobility and Development, Development Studies Centre, Australian National University, Canberra.

YOUNG, E.A. (1982), Town Populations, Australian National University Press, Canberra.

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ABORIGINAL MIGRATION TO THE CITIES

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