Welfare outcomes of migration of low income earners from metropolitan to non-metropolitan Australia
Summary
The search for affordable housing was a significant trigger for moves. Over 50% of movers who rated housing affordability as a relocation factor regarded it as being “very important”. More people in total rated housing affordability than rated any other factor. Lifestyle considerations and personal circumstances were also very influential in relocation decisions. Many movers wanted a better place in which to raise a family (58% very important), preferred to live a quieter lifestyle away from the city (45%), were concerned about crime levels in the city (45%) and had other personal or health reasons for relocating. A large majority of movers believed that they were better off after moving with regard to housing cost, quality and size.
Project Number: 70066
Research Theme: Social_Wellbeing, Demographics_and_Modelling
Project Leader: Marshall, Nancy
Funding Year: 2001
Research Centre: UNSW-UWS
Research & Policy Bulletin
Issue 026: Do unemployed people move to job opportunities?
Unemployed people tend to move to areas of better employment opportunities and thereby increase their likelihood of leaving income support. Private renters are most likely to move, next public renters and home owners are least likely to move.
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69 KB PDF Document
Research & Policy Bulletin
Issue 053: Why low-income households move: the search for affordable housing and employment
A geographic mismatch between where housing is affordable and where jobs are available is a key driver of moves of welfare recipients between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas.
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87 KB PDF Document
Description
This research aimed to identify the motivations of, and tradeoffs made by, low-income households who choose to relocate from metropolitan cities to rural and regional Australia. Specifically, the project sought to determine the importance of housing considerations vis-à-vis other factors in location choice and whether, in the search for appropriate and affordable housing, the net welfare of movers is affected. The bias towards lower income earners in out-migration flows from Australian cities has been noted for some years by researchers. Particularly in Sydney an association between immigration and out-migration has been noted and commentators have inferred that people are being forced out of the city by high housing prices.
To the extent that the net welfare of movers is reduced due to relocation, policy issues related to housing subsidies and provision of human services arise. Whilst some light can be shed on these issues with secondary data from key sources such as Population and Housing Censuses and the Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS) longitudinal data set on income support recipients, direct questioning of those relocating is required to get accurate information on decision factors and their levels of welfare before and after relocation.
This research therefore involved surveying a sample of low-income households who had recently relocated from Sydney and Adelaide to non-metropolitan localities in NSW and South Australia, respectively. The level of out-migration from Sydney is higher than for other Australian cities and Sydney's housing prices are by far the highest. The extent to which people are in fact being forced out by high housing prices is likely to be most sharply manifest there. But the phenomenon of low income out-migration is evident around Australia so the inclusion of one other state in the study will go some way towards determining the extent to which the outflow from Sydney is uniquely influenced by housing affordability.
The study design focused on income support recipients (aged, unemployed, disabled, sole parents) since these people are likely to most sharply embody the sorts of considerations just referred to. Operationally this choice makes it efficient to identify a sample of movers since FaCS databases enable direct identification of movers from metropolitan postcodes to selected non-metropolitan localities.
More Information
Research and Policy Bulletin: Issue 026: Do unemployed people move to job opportunities?
69 KB PDF Document
Positioning Paper: No. 034: Welfare outcomes of migration of low-income earners from metropolitan to non-metropolitan Australia
998 KB PDF Document
Research and Policy Bulletin: Issue 053: Why low-income households move: the search for affordable housing and employment
87 KB PDF Document
Final Report: No. 032: Welfare outcomes of migration of low-income earners from metropolitan to non-metropolitan Australia
1067 KB PDF Document
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