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Working Paper 1
Africans in Australia: A Population Overview
Summary of Key Findings
Australia hosts the 12th largest African diaspora community outside of the African continent.
At the last census, there were 496,000 African-born people living in Australia (1.9% of the total population), with immigration from Africa representing a fast-growing component of overseas migration to Australia.
The African diaspora in Australia is dominated by five main countries of birth, though migrants from all African countries are present in Australia.
While African migration to Australia is not a new phenomenon, it has increased dramatically since the late 1990s. 68.5% of Africans in Australia today arrived since the year 2000. The primary factors driving this increase vary considerably by country of origin but are directly shaped by Australia’s immigration settings and priorities.
Most migrants from Africa are settled in NSW, Victoria, WA and Qld, though disproportionately so in WA. The profile of the main African nationalities is quite different in WA and Qld than in NSW and Vic.
31.4% of the African-born population in Australia identify as having only European ancestry. 18.9% identify with Sub-Saharan African ancestry, and smaller proportions identify as North African and South Asian respectively.
Most migrants from Africa are young and concentrated among working and reproductive ages. The exception is migrants from North Africa who are comparatively older.
The socio-economic outcomes of African migrants, as measured in this analysis, vary significantly by region of birth. Those from West and Southern Africa exhibit the strongest outcomes and those from Central Africa experience the highest levels of disadvantage. Most African migrants, though, fare better than the Australian-born population on the measures examined.
Working Paper 1 - Africans in Australia: A Population Overview.pdfWorking Paper 1 Appendix.pdfWorking Paper 2
Unlocking the Economic Potential of Africans in Australia: A Legal Perspective
Summary of Key Findings
The population of Africans in Australia is growing and with that comes opportunity to increase and diversify trade and investment relations between Australia and Africa, which today is heavily concentrated in the mining and extractive sector. The capacity of Africans in Australia to invest and trade and contribute to the Australian economy depends, in part, on the role of Australian law in facilitating their ability to exercise economic agency in Australia.
Australia has very limited international economic treaties with African countries. Australia has no single investment and trade agreement or double taxation agreement with most African countries. This means limited international legal protection for Africans in (and outside of) Australia who want to do business in Australia. For example, the absence of a double taxation agreement (except with South Africa) means that Africans in Australia could be subject to double taxation when they do business both in Australia and their home countries in Africa.
Australian domestic law does allow citizens, permanent residents and other eligible visa holders, including Africans in Australia, who want to set up and run a business to do so. In this sense, Australian domestic law is facilitative of the economic agency of Africans in Australia. However, lack of recognition of educational and professional qualifications, English language competency requirements in obvious cases where they should not exist, and visa requirements that tie migrants to nominated employers constrain the economic agency of not only African migrants, but also of other migrants who are similarly situated. Requiring Africans in Australia who have had all their education with English as the medium of instruction and/or who have obtained Australian university degrees to prove their English Language competency through an expensive test targets them for exclusion from professions of their choice, thus limiting their economic agency.
Australian national interest underlies the regulation of the entry into, and presence in Australia, of migrants, including Africans, and their consequent economic engagement. Laws and policies that place intentional or unintentional limitations on the capacity of migrants to contribute to the Australian economy are inconsistent with the national interest objective of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth). Thus, the Australian Government needs to rethink both the limits that its laws and policies place on the economic agency of Africans in Australia and its limited international economic engagement with the continent of Africa.
Working Paper 2 - Unlocking the Economic Potential of Africans in Australia: A Legal Perspective.pdfPage updated
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