Chapter 12: Life Chances: Issues of Childrearing and Poverty among Asian Immigrants
Overview
Australia has a long history of Asian immigration with cities such as Melbourne having had their Chinatowns since the nineteenth century. Recent immigration from Asia, however, has brought a great diversity of place of origin and of immigrant and economic status. On the one hand there are refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos who have fled lives disrupted by war and trauma in their homelands. On the other hand there are immigrants from the more prosperous backgrounds of Hong Kong and Singapore. Refugees and economic immigrants alike come with a wide range of education, professional qualifications and language skills. Many new arrivals find gaining employment difficult and have to live on low incomes. The recession of the early 1990s has seen many longer-term immigrants unemployed as well. Economic restructuring and the recession have lead to substantial reductions in the labouring and manufacturing jobs traditionally taken by newly arrived immigrants with little English.
This chapter considers some issues of childbirth and childrearing for a group of Asian immigrant and refugee families from diverse backgrounds and income groups, but with a particular focus on those living on low incomes; that is, incomes below or near the poverty line. It looks at the effects of low income on the health and well-being of these families with young children. The chapter draws on the first stage of the longitudinal "Life Chances" study undertaken by the Brotherhood of St Laurence and looks at the situation and experiences of 33 Asianborn mothers with young babies. Other reports of the "Life Chances" study have included:
- an analysis of issues of poverty and disadvantage for all the non-English-speaking background families in the study (Taylor & MacDonald, 1992);
- a report on the services used by the mothers of different income groups (Gilley, 1993); and
- a study of the employment situation of the families over time (Gilley, 1994).
Speaker/ Author
JANET TAYLOR
Janet was born in Melbourne. She has social work qualifications from The University of Melbourne and a master's degree in sociology from La Trobe University. She has two children. She has worked in social research for a number of years and is currently the Principal Research Officer at the Social Policy and Research Unit of the Brotherhood of St Laurence in Melbourne. She has worked on a range of research studies focused on immigrant issues and her present research interests include the impact of low income and other aspects of disadvantage on families with young children.
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