The Impacts of Policy Change on Overseas Human Capital in Australia. The Implementation of the 485 Graduate Visa Scheme

Abstract

This paper investigates the human capital implications of a policy change resulting from the introduction of the 485 graduate visa in Australia in 2007. As a result of rising volumes of migration across international borders for higher education, the geography of skilled migration has become increasingly important for space-based policy due to its impacts on regional labour markets and influence on regional development. The Australian federal government introduced a graduate visa scheme that has resulted in a marked increase in the number of overseas graduates staying-on in the country post-graduation. However, little research has been undertaken investigating their employment outcomes or analysing their patterns of inter-regional migration within the nation in their entry to the labour force. Using survey data, this paper addresses these issues, enabling the analysis and comparison of ‘before’ and ‘after’ patterns of regional distribution of those immigrants as they transition from higher education to employment. Their working conditions and spatial patterns are investigated and are compared with the corresponding cohorts of Australian graduates over the same period of time.

Francisco Rowe

Professor of Population Data Science

My research interests include human mobility and migration; economic geography and spatial inequality; geographic data science.