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This selection of papers presented at an Academy of the Social Sciences in Australian workshop in March 1991, examine the employment status of Australian Aborigines and assess the prospects of meeting the target of Aboriginal employment equity by the year 2000 set by the Federal Government’s Aboriginal Employment Development Policy (AEDP).

Edited excerpt from publisher’s website.

The papers are: Government initiatives for Aboriginal employment: equity, equality and policy realism / J. C. Altman and W. G. Sanders; The effectiveness of labour market programs: an evaluation / J. Sloan; Economic status of Aboriginal and other Australians: a comparison / F. Jones; The demographic structure and location of the Aboriginal population: employment implications / H. Tesfaghiorghis and A. Gray; Aboriginal labour migration for employment: the evidence / J. Taylor; Aboriginal youth unemployment / P. W. Miller; Aboriginal women in the labour market / A. E. Daly; The Community Development Employment Projects (CEDP) scheme / R. Morony; The prospects for employment equity in remote areas: the Torres Strait case / W. S. Arthur; Employment prospects for Aboriginals in New South Wales / R. T. Ross; Aboriginal employment, income and human capital: towards a conceptual framework / B. J. Chapman; ‘The American Dilemma’ Down Under: a comparison of the economic status of US Indians and Blacks and Aboriginal Australians / R. G. Gregory; Conclusion / J. C. Altman. Show less

In 1998, the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) and the Department of Family and Community Services, Indigenous Policy Unit (IPU), undertook research into how the aspirations of young Indigenous people in remote regions match the Commonwealth government’s income support programs for the unemployed. The aim was to assess the relevance of two particular programs, Newstart and Youth Allowance, and propose how they might be made more relevant. The project aimed to be longitudinal, covering the five years between 1999 and 2003, and analysed data from surveys of a sample of Indigenous males and females aged between 15 and 24 in two remote locations of Australia, the Kimberley and Torres Strait. Three interrelated discussion papers resulted from an initial survey in Torres Strait. The papers (indexed at TD/TNC 75.335, TD/TNC 75.337 and TD/TNC 75.344) examine job searching, career aspirations, orientation to work, and education and training.

This paper aims to determine what role, if any, young Torres Strait Islanders see education and training playing in their future careers. It examines the pattern of secondary education and training within the survey sample. The findings reveal that these young people do value education and training as a form of investment that will enable them to develop their careers. The general perception of education was positive. Staying on at school to Year 12 to improve career prospects sometimes appeared to be compromised by family commitments. Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) were found to facilitate career pathways but was not in itself sufficient. Relevant levels of infrastructure, instructors and a commitment from community leaders were also required if communities were to have the capacity to train their young people. Show less

Indigenous people are far more likely to be discouraged from looking for work than non-Indigenous Australians. An understanding of the microeconomic factors that discourage particular workers is important in addressing the labour force disadvantage faced by Indigenous Australians. This paper focuses on the interaction between labour supply and demand, and, in particular, on the factors that lead to Indigenous people who want to work not looking for work and thus remaining outside the workforce. A discouraged worker is defined in the paper as someone who wants to work but is not actively looking for a job. The analysis uses data from the 1994 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey (NATSIS). In conventional economic models of labour supply, social environmental factors play a limited part but this analysis includes cultural and social environmental factors. Cultural factors are found to be particularly significant in determining Indigenous labour supply although they are not the only factors affecting labour supply. Age, educational attainment and family factors emerge as more important. Implications for policy are that Indigenous Australians want to work as much as non-Indigenous Australians and policies aimed at increasing the demand for their labour are vital. In addition to addressing demand, attention needs to be paid to cultural and social factors. Show less

This paper critically evaluates Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) annual estimates of Indigenous labour force status for the period 1994-2000 based on the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The purpose is to assess the usefulness of the estimates for policy evaluation. The evaluation involved an examination of the estimates in the context of previous attempts to benchmark the position of Indigenous people in relation to the labour market, an assessment of the LFS methodology and a calculation of the standard errors associated with the annual movement in the estimates. The evaluation questions whether the positive results of the estimates suggest the emergence of an improvement in the position of Indigenous people in the labour market, whether they reflect the success of the Indigenous Employment Policy (IEP), and whether they result from macroeconomic or microeconomic change. The evaluation concludes that the LFS experimental estimates are of limited value for policy analysis. They confirm existing understandings of recent labour force trends but are unreliable due to high standard errors. Movements of annual rates are statistically insignificant in all but the last two years, thus preventing the establishment of long-term trends. The significant decline in unemployment rates since 1998 reflects trends in Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme employment in which administrative changes to the scheme are likely to have raised overall employment levels over the same period. The prospect that recent decline in Indigenous unemployment has formed part of the general labour market trend appears unlikely. The implementation of IEP appears to have taken place too recently to have had any bearing on this result. The proposal by the ABS to augment the Indigenous sample in the LFS by providing annualised estimates would require complex transformations of LFS data that are likely to effect the reliability of the final estimates. Show less

Recent reporting suggests that there has been no growth in Indigenous employment since the mid-2000s, or even that employment has decreased slightly. Such reports focus on changes in a measure of employment which includes Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) participants. However, when CDEP is excluded from the employment measure a very different picture emerges - one of a strong and sustained increase in non-CDEP employment since 1994. Failure to clearly focus on non-CDEP employment can lead to misleading conclusions about employment growth and the effectiveness of government policy aimed at increasing non-CDEP employment. This paper uses census data combined with CDEP administrative data to produce estimates of changes in non-CDEP employment for Indigenous Australian between 1996 and 2011.

Abstract from publisher's website. Show less

The West Kimberley region of Western Australia is the latest potential focus of the minerals boom currently sweeping many parts of remote Australia. The major impetus is provided by the Browse gas project off the North West Shelf, while other mining initiatives are emergent alongside an expansion of tourism and aquaculture industries. These stirrings in the regional economy are set against a background of new administrative arrangements in Indigenous affairs and sustained projected growth in the Indigenous population. Not surprisingly, there have been growing demands for a detailed profile of socioeconomic conditions in the region set within a framework of understanding the dynamics of Indigenous labour demand and supply. In responding to this need, this study injects statistical information and analysis into deliberations regarding development futures and their possible impacts in the region. As such, it also provides a baseline against which any subsequent monitoring of impacts can take place.

Published abstract reprinted by permission of the copyright owner. Show less

This paper explores some of the issues in Indigenous self-determination in education through a focus on independent community-controlled community Indigenous schools. After establishing the historical and policy context for the emergence of community control in education, the paper provides an overview of data related to location, enrolment, staffing and curricula in 20 independent Aboriginal schools and explores the philosophical movement that underpins many independent schools: ‘both ways’ education. The paper addresses specific and general policy issues related to community-controlled education in the light of recent research suggesting limited support among Indigenous people for independent schools. Show less

Preliminary analysis of the 1994 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey (NATSIS) indicates that arrest is one of the major factors underlying the poor employment prospects of the indigenous population. In order to throw some light in the direction of causality between arrest and employment, this paper distinguished the employment effect of arrest from the effect of the unobservable characteristics of those arrested. Differences in arrest rates between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians may explain over 20 per cent of the difference in employment/population ratios of the two groups. This study illustrates the importance of social factors in determining Indigenous employment. The findings of this paper support the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, in particular that ensuring that Indigenous citizens stay out of jails should be a priority policy issue for governments. Show less

This paper provides an analysis of data from the 1994 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey (NATSIS) and all the censuses from 1981 to 1996 to highlight the role of the Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) scheme in augmenting Indigenous labour supply. CDEP is a publicly funded employment program, mainly located in rural and remote areas of Australia, and designed to address labour market disadvantage and a lack of local employment opportunities. It provides part time work on community projects and caters for Indigenous people with poor employment prospects, especially youth, those with low skills, and people who have difficulty speaking English. The analysis reveals that the CDEP scheme enhances Indigenous labour force participation although the scheme hides a high level of underemployment among Indigenous Australians, with CDEP scheme workers about twice as likely to be underemployed as other Indigenous workers. In order to employ more productive workers for longer hours, more flexibility in the scheme’s guidelines, rules and funding would be required. One of the main factors underlying the significant increase in the Indigenous participation rates relative to those for other Australians is a significant interaction between CDEP and postsecondary qualifications. In general, the CDEP scheme appears to overcome established barriers to Indigenous labour force participation by providing work managed by, and on behalf of, the local community. Show less

The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey provided a unique opportunity to re-examine the underlying determinants of indigenous employment. The recent publication from the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research (CAEPR) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) publication entitled ‘Employment outcomes for indigenous people’ emphasises the importance of education and training in securing better employment outcomes for indigenous Australians. Regression analysis is used to highlight the large potential gains to indigenous employment that can accrue through improved access to education. This paper argues that labour force statistics which compare indigenous and non-indigenous outcomes should be adjusted, using a simple technique, to account for the large differences in educational attainment in the respective population. Show less