English proficiency in Australia, 1981 to 2016

Abstract

Using Australian census data, the paper examines the incidence of poor English competency in Australia from 1981 onwards. The paper examines English competency in relation to various characteristics such as sex, age, language spoken, visa type, citizenship, duration of residence and location. It finds that there was a sharp rise in the numbers of people not speaking English well between the 2011 and 2016 Censuses and special attention is given to this rise in the paper. Recently, the Australian Government unsuccessfully legislated for the introduction of a requirement of English competency at the level of IELTS 6 (the commonly used university entrance level) as a condition for the award of Australian citizenship. The paper argues that this test would have led to a very large number of disenfranchised Australian permanent residents and this would be a highly undesirable result. Nevertheless, employment and social participation are strongly influenced by English competency and residents with poor English are disadvantaged. The policy suggestion is made that participation in a course of English language training for those without functional English skills could be made a precondition of the award of permanent residence-without the application of a passing grade.

Drop-the-p: Bayesian CFA of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support in Australia

“…In the current study, the MSPSS was applied in its original format (Zimet et al, 1988) without any additional explanations to the "special person" term such as "a girlfriend/boyfriend, fiancé, relative, neighbour, or a doctor" (Eker et al, 2001). Therefore, considering that the majority of Australians have English as their native language (McDonald et al, 2019), the original MSPSS can be applied in Australia without revisions. Moreover, the two other possible two-factor models, in which FA and FR or FA and SO were combined, also did not show good fit to the data, indicating that a threefactor structure better explained the item responses in the Australian population.…”

Introduction to the Special Issue on Big Data and Social Policy in Australia

“…All of these topics have been the focus of research published in the AJSI in recent years (e.g. Adams et al, 2020; Chesters, 2018; Christensen et al, 2021; Huang et al, 2016; Jarvis et al, 2018; Marks & Phillips, 2020; McDonald et al, 2019; O'Halloran et al, 2020; Perry et al, 2019; Peterie et al, 2020; Wilson et al, 2021; Zhou et al, 2019).…”

Past and projected growth of Australia’s older migrant populations

“…Unlike the earlier migrants from Western and Eastern Europe, very few of these Southern European migrants were educated and most worked in manufacturing and construction jobs for which proficiency in English was not a major requirement. Consequently, many today have very limited English proficiency (McDonald et al, 2019 ) and this has major implications for the provision to them of social and health services. This is the group for whom ethnic-specific service provision is most important in Australia at present.…”

“…Most were still relatively young in 2016 but many have assisted older relatives migrate to Australia thus contributing to the large numbers at older ages. English-language proficiency is a major issue for older persons from China who have also arrived relatively late in their lives (McDonald et al, 2019 ). This group will pose challenges for service provision for older people in the coming years.…”

“…In this paper, we focus on the recent past and projected future of Australia’s older population by country (or global region) of birth. Country of birth is important because of its association with English language proficiency, which is central to social participation and ability to access government services in Australia (McDonald, Moyle, & Temple, 2019 ). A sizeable body of literature had found that older migrants from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds encounter multiple barriers in accessing aged-care and health-related services in Australia (Haralambous et al, 2014 ; Radermacher, Feldman, & Browning, 2009 ; Rao, Warburton, & Bartlett, 2006 ; Tipping & Whiteside, 2015 ).…”