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Skilled migration is an important strategy in developed economies seeking to address skills shortages and population ageing. Research on the labour market outcomes of skilled migrants tends to focus on employers' devaluation of skills without considering the role of immigration policy in the migration process. Moreover, there is little understanding of whether efforts to meet employer demands for local qualifications improve labour market outcomes. Drawing on a study on skilled migrants sponsored under the State‐Specific and Regional Migration Scheme in the regional state of South Australia, we explore the shaping of skills and skills recognition in the migration journey, particularly migrants' strategy of reskilling in response to employer demands for local qualifications. Our logistic regressions on the association between the acquisition of Australian qualifications and labour market outcomes reveal only marginal returns to these efforts. We argue that Australia should consider developing a more coherent skilled migration process to better harness the human capital of skilled migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the labour market and human capital investment behaviour of immigrant couples in Australia. The family investment hypothesis (FIH) states that immigrant husbands, whom the FIH assumes to be the primary earners in the family, will invest more in their human capital than immigrant wives, whom the FIH assumes to be secondary earners. Using longitudinal data from Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) for the period 2001 to 2014, we do not find support for the FIH. Instead, we find that foreign‐born husbands and wives share similar labour market assimilation patterns with respect to hours of work and wages. Our estimates suggest that immigrant wives' labour market behaviour can be better explained by their own long‐term career progression and labour market assimilation, than through supporting their husbands' labour market assimilation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By virtue of its island geography and isolation, Australia is able to control the scale and composition of immigration more than most nations. Accordingly, it has one of the most highly managed migration programs and intakes. Skill selection has been the major focus of both permanent and temporary migration programs in Australia over the last two decades. Government has continually modified the Permanent Migration Program so that not only are a higher proportion of settlers coming to Australia under the Skilled Migration Program but the skill selection is tied increasingly to skill shortages in the labor market. Increasingly, permanent settlers are selected from student migrants and skilled temporary migrants because they have Australian qualifications and experience. The article analyzes the increasingly complex nexus between temporary and permanent skilled migration in Australia, and discusses the changing scale and composition of skilled migration to Australia. One particular feature of Australian immigration has been the continual shifts in the process of selection of skilled temporary and permanent immigrants on the basis of empirical evidence to achieve better economic outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immigration and border protection policies are driven by national interest. However, the national interest can be more broadly and more narrowly conceived, depending in part on the degree to which the future of the individual state is understood to be contingent on a shared global future and on the recognition that the short-term costs of international cooperation may bring long-term collective benefits. Whereas such global interdependence is recognised in international statecraft in the domains of aid, trade and climate change, such recognition does not extend to immigration. Australia's national policies towards human movement from the Global South tend to be driven in large part by exaggerated fears (of unregulated border crossings) or a narrowly instrumental approach to the economic benefits of human capital transfers (migrants filling skills gaps and providing flexibility in the labour market). A broader conception of migration would take into account the potential developmental benefits of human movement for source nations and for migrants themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]