Australian Indigenous Law Reporter
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The disadvantaged position of Indigenous peoples within the labour market and the economy generally was a theme frequently touched upon in the final report of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991 and was identified as a major underlying cause of high rates of incarceration.
The paucity of statistical information about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population which led to recommendation 49 of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody:
That proposals for a special national survey covering a range of social, demographic, health and economic characteristics of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population with full Aboriginal participation at all levels be supported.
In response to this recommendation a National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey was conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 1994. Employment Outcomes for Indigenous Australians is the second of a thematic series of publications which will be produced from the National Survey which provides a timely assessment of progress towards the goals of important recommendations of the Royal Commission (and the Aboriginal Employment Development Policy) as well as a comprehensive investigation of the many interrelated factors controlling the labour force status of Indigenous peoples. To enhance the policy relevance of this paper, the ABS commissioned the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at the Australian National University to collaborate in the analysis of data and in authoring the report.
Excerpts from the Introduction (pp. 6-9) and the summary (pp. 1-5) of the report are reproduced below .
Of the 339 recommendations made by the Royal Commission, only 24 of these
(Commonwealth of Australia 1991c,
51, 189, 192, 203 and 300-20) related
directly or indirectly to the question of employment, training and other
aspects of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander participation in the labour
market. Although relatively few in number, the importance of these
recommendations
cannot be sufficiently stressed as the relatively poor labour
force status of Indigenous people lay at the core of the Royal Commission's
findings regarding the underlying causes of excessively high custody levels.
Employment was found to be an intermittent, rather than a constant, factor in the lives of Indigenous Australians who died in custody (Commonwealth of Australia 1991a, p. 378). Also of concern to the Royal Commission was the large number of young Indigenous people who were unable to find work. The Royal Commission reported a link between unemployment and the likelihood of contact with the juvenile and criminal justice systems (see also Gale, Bailey-Harris & Wundersitz 1990, p. 56). Not surprisingly, the Royal Commission findings laid heavy stress on the relationship between chronic unemployment, low economic status and imprisonment.
Among the underlying factors contributing to poor labour force status, the Royal Commission highlighted structural effects such as those due to age, low educational status, few skills, poor health, and low proficiency in English (Commonwealth of Australia 1991a, pp. 404-5). Also noted were variations in economic circumstances between Indigenous people living in discrete communities in remote areas, those in country towns and those in large cities (Commonwealth of Australia 1991b, pp. 442-5).
The general thrust of Royal Commission recommendations regarding the poor labour force status of Indigenous people was to advocate a strengthening of existing employment strategies under the umbrella of the Aboriginal Employment Development Policy (Commonwealth of Australia 1991b). Since 1987, this policy has sought to increase opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the mainstream labour market, to generate employment through community development and to expand the economic base of Indigenous communities. The Commonwealth response to these recommendations is detailed in the Annual Report of the Royal Commission Government Response Monitoring Unit of ATSIC (Commonwealth of Australia 1995a). Briefly, this pledged the allocation of substantial new resources towards furthering the aims of labour market programs in the public and private sectors and expanding the CDEP scheme.
Employment outcomes for Indigenous people have been characterised by lower rates of employment, higher unemployment and lower income than the general Australian population. Studies of this situation and initiatives to remedy it have been increasingly evident in the last two decades. A landmark contribution was the 1985 Report of the Committee of Review of Aboriginal Employment and Training Programs (Commonwealth of Australia 1985). This found that despite attempts made to achieve real and lasting improvements in the economic situation of Indigenous peoples, many of the problems alluded to a decade earlier by the Henderson Inquiry into Poverty in Australia remained at least as serious, if not more so. Subsequent to the 1985 report a number of new employment initiatives were established under the banner of the Aboriginal Employment Development Policy (AEDP) in 1987. Several years later, before the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey results presented here were available, the 1994 Review of the AEDP found that despite some improvement, the overall employment and economic situation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples remained much worse than that of non-Indigenous Australians:
' they were still almost three times more likely to be unemployed;
' their experience of long-term unemployment was disproportionate;
' the employment situation of men in urban areas had actually worsened;
' average incomes had declined relative to the national average; and
' there was no evidence to indicate a decline in welfare dependency
(ATSIC 1994, pp. xiii-xiv).
There is now a rich literature that details the relatively low economic status of Indigenous Australians and examines underlying causes for the period between 1971 to 1991 (Altman & Nieuwenhuysen 1979; Fisk 1985; Commonwealth of Australia 1985; Altman 1991; Taylor 1993a, 1993b; ATSIC 1994; Daly 1995). Viewed collectively, and in sequence, these analyses reveal the worsening economic plight of Indigenous peoples with a basic problem being the failure of job growth to keep up with growth in the population of working age.
Also revealed are labour market trends that run counter, at times, to the economic cycle. This is due, in part, to the emergence and substantial growth of the CDEP scheme which operates both as an income support and as an employment program. It also reflects the consolidation of a distinct Indigenous segment in the labour market. Briefly, this segmentation is characterised by high levels of statistical segregation between the industry and occupational distributions of Indigenous and non-Indigenous workers with the former over-represented in activities aimed at servicing the Indigenous population (Taylor & Jin 1995). Another common thread in the literature relates to the underlying determinants of poor employment outcomes (Altman & Nieuwenhuysen 1979; Fisk 1985; Commonwealth of Australia 1985; Altman 1991; Taylor 1993a, 1993b; ATSIC 1994; Daly 1995). These have remained focussed around the themes of locational disadvantage, youthful demography, poor skill levels and the fact that not all Indigenous people 'face the general Australian economy with their time fully available for employment or divided simply between 'work' and 'leisure'. Rather they come with their time significantly allocated to distinctly Aboriginal purposes and activities' (Coombs et al. 1989, p. 86).
The NATSIS provides scope for the investigation of interrelationships between labour market outcomes and a host of other influencing factors such as location, age, educational attainment, training experience, health status and previous encounters with the criminal justice system. A range of perceptual data, including reasons for not working and difficulties in finding a job or in attempting further study or training, were also collected. In addition to this, the survey data provide national estimates of important labour force indicators that have hitherto not been available, at least not as direct estimates nor in a form that could be cross-tabulated with other data. Prominent among these are figures on employment in CDEP schemes and in the community and private sectors of the labour market. Also available for the first time are measures of training experience and duration of unemployment.
...
The achievement of better employment outcomes for Indigenous people, as recommended by the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, requires detailed understanding of the factors underlying labour force status. Analysis of these factors serves to better inform a range of government programs and policies. In addition, progress towards policy goals, such as those of the Aboriginal Employment Development Policy (AEDP), needs to be constantly monitored. In the past, this process has relied on data from the five-yearly Census of Population and Housing. Following the release of results from the 1994 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey (NATSIS), it is now possible to use this more comprehensive dataset about Indigenous people to examine factors underlying labour force status as well as progress towards better outcomes.
Despite efforts to raise Indigenous labour force status closer to the levels found in the general workforce, the analysis of survey data indicated that no movement towards this goal occurred between 1991 and 1994. While the number of Indigenous people in work continued to rise, this expansion barely kept up with the growth in working age population resulting in little or no improvement in the employment/population ratio. Furthermore, such new jobs as were created have been overwhelmingly as a consequence of the continued expansion of the CDEP scheme. Most CDEP scheme employment is part-time which has meant that Indigenous workers as a whole have been increasingly more reliant than the rest of the workforce on part-time employment.
While conclusions about recent trends in the unemployment rate for Indigenous people are more difficult to establish, it does appear that the decline in the rate observed in the late 1980s had levelled off by 1994. Thus, as far as policy is concerned, the key message is that the relatively poor labour market position of Indigenous people plateaued in the early 1990s and that employment equity is still far from being achieved. Furthermore, those in the prime working age group, who have been the main recipients of government efforts to redress labour market imbalances over the past two decades, remained substantially disadvantaged in the labour market.
The analysis of survey data supports the Royal Commission finding that structural factors play a crucial role in determining employment outcomes and a primary task of the report is to summarise these relationships.
It is clear from the analysis of survey data that Indigenous people operate within distinctly regionalised labour markets and that this produces quite different employment outcomes geographically. This has implications for efforts to raise the labour force status of Indigenous people. For example, one of the Royal Commission recommendations referred to a need to encourage more private sector employment. It is evident from the survey findings that such aims have greater chance of success in some parts of the country rather than others. For example, in rural areas, and particularly in remote regions of north Australia, the private sector share of employment was minimal. As a consequence there is heavy reliance for work on the CDEP scheme and other community sector activities. By contrast, in capital cities and regions of eastern and southern Australia, the situation was found to be the reverse.
Contrary to expectation, this has meant that jobs have been easier to create in remote rural areas than in areas where more mainstream employment opportunities exist, a process which has particularly favoured males. The point to note, however, is that job creation via the CDEP scheme is driven solely by institutional processes and is not subject to the same rigours of market competition in the mainstream labour force.
One consequence of this rural focus in CDEP scheme expansion has been that urban centres in country areas away from capital cities now have by far the worst labour force status with lower employment/population ratios and higher unemployment rates. This is because there are fewer mainstream employment opportunities in other urban areas than in capital cities and relatively less access to employment options via the CDEP scheme.
The importance of location as a factor in determining outcomes is further underlined by the fact that a lack of locally available jobs was clearly identified as the prime reason why people in rural areas and country towns found it difficult to get work or were otherwise discouraged from seeking work.
The survey analysis found that employment levels followed the conventional pattern of low rates in youth age groups, rising to a peak in the prime working age group, followed by a rapid decline in old age. However, the employment/population ratio was substantially lower for Indigenous people at all ages than for the general population.
One issue affecting young Indigenous people, which the Royal Commission clearly identified, was the effect of high arrest rates on disadvantage in education and subsequent transition to the workforce. These higher rates of arrest were found by the analysis of survey data to contribute substantially to lower employment/population ratios, particularly for male teenagers.
Set against this was the observation that Indigenous youth have followed the general trend towards increased retention in secondary schooling and participation in post-secondary education and training programs, though still at lower than average rates. In terms of educational attainment, one of the largest differences to emerge between the various age groups was the proportion of Indigenous people with no education. Less than 1% of the youngest age group had no education compared to 17% of those aged over 45 years. This difference was found to account for the older Indigenous population having around 8% lower employment rates than their younger counterparts.
While poor health was found to be common among Indigenous youth, with around one-quarter of individuals reporting a long-term health condition, this level increased with age. Levels reported by older people over 45 years were up to two and three times higher than for youth. This higher rate of reported long-term health conditions at later ages helped explain some of the decline in employment/population ratios among older people. However the association of poor health status with employment outcomes was weaker than expected, possibly due to the self-reported nature of the health variable used.
While the increased movement into the workforce of Indigenous females in recent times has been consistent with that experienced by all females, there is a sense in which Indigenous females have experienced double disadvantage in the labour market once for being female and again for being Indigenous. Given this predicament, it is disconcerting to note that the employment ratio for Indigenous females appears to have fallen between 1991 and 1994 while that for males remained steady. It is important to point out that this occurred after a period from 1986 to 1991 when the rate of female employment growth outstripped that of their male counterparts. Part of the explanation for this relatively poor performance was found to be the lower rate of female employment in CDEP schemes, as employment in these schemes accounted for the major share of new jobs created. In 1994, the survey found that less than one-third of CDEP scheme employees were female.
When questioned about their main reasons for not looking for work, Indigenous females cited childcare and other family responsibilities most frequently. Likewise, when asked about their reasons for not seeking further study, lack of childcare provision emerged as the main difficulty. In line with these perceptions, a major finding of the survey was that the presence of children in a family had a negative influence on employment for females. This negative influence increased as the number of children increased. This was no doubt because women bear the major responsibility for child-rearing.
On a positive note, the survey analysis found that Indigenous youth have followed the trend generally towards staying on at school and entering training courses, although still at much lower rates than for the general population. However, as with other young people, this trend partly reflects diminishing options in the youth labour market with increased competition for a shrinking pool of full-time jobs. At the same time there has been growth in part-time work and subsidies for education and training (Gregory 1995).
The crucial role of education and training in successfully competing for work was made clear by the analysis which found that this was the single most important factor in improving employment outcomes. In terms of the Royal Commission recommendations regarding better employment outcomes, this finding acquires added significance as the factors with greatest employment impact are clearly amenable to policy intervention.
Most striking of all was the negative impact of having no education at all which displayed by far the strongest relationship with employment outcomes. By contrast, continuing education to Year 12 was clearly associated with an increased probability of employment, particularly for females. Of greater importance than Year 12 attainment, however, was the acquisition of post-secondary qualifications. For males, holding a vocational or tertiary qualification was found to almost double the chances of being employed. For females, the presence of a vocational qualification was equally important, although the award of a tertiary qualification had an even greater impact on employment chances. In this regard, the lower enrolment and retention rates of Indigenous youth must remain of concern. This is not an isolated issue, however, as part of the explanation derives from structural circumstances such as the fact that Indigenous youth in many remote areas do not have direct access to secondary schooling.
The link between employment status and custody levels identified by the Royal Commission was extended by the survey analysis which established a strong negative relationship between arrest rates and subsequent employment outcomes. While it has been clear for some time that unemployment increases the chances of encountering the criminal justice system, the extent to which prior involvement with the criminal justice system affects subsequent employment chances has been far less well understood (Broadhurst 1992; Broadhurst, Maller & Duffey 1988). The analysis found that, all other things being equal, the fact of having been arrested within the five years prior to the survey reduced the chances of employment by around half. Clearly, this is simply part of the same nexus between economic status and custody that the Royal Commission uncovered. On a more positive note, it also suggests the likelihood that any reduction in arrest rates would also be beneficial to employment prospects.
A key finding of the analysis was the need to explain Indigenous employment outcomes with reference to the institutional processes of the CDEP scheme. Any failure to distinguish CDEP scheme employment from jobs in the mainstream labour market leads to an overestimation of the impact of certain variables on employment in the scheme and an underestimation of their impact on other employment. For example, lack of formal education, difficulty with English, and having been arrested were all more important with respect to the mainstream labour market than for CDEP scheme employment.
It is also clear that employment in the CDEP scheme has filled a void in areas where mainstream job opportunities are scarce or non-existent. One estimate derived from the survey data suggests that without the CDEP scheme the employment/population ratio for Indigenous people would have been halved in 1994 while the unemployment rate would have been twice as high. Given the spatial concentration of such employment, this impact would have been most keenly felt in rural areas. The other feature of the scheme to emerge from the analysis is that it clearly offers some form of employment to many individuals who, for want of sufficient skills and other disadvantages, would have found it impossible to compete successfully for work in the mainstream labour market.
For the first time, results from the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Survey have provided the basis for an intercensal review of the labour force status of Indigenous Australians. Apart from enabling a timely assessment of trends in selected social indicators, data from the survey have proven far richer than those available from the Census as well as more attuned to an Indigenous perspective. More importantly, the NATSIS provides a wide-ranging data source which has enabled an investigation of interrelationships between labour market outcomes and a host of other influencing factors such as location, age, education and training, health status and encounters with the criminal justice system. Also available for the first time have been measures of training experience and duration of unemployment. Adding depth to this exercise, some of the reasons that individuals perceived to have been the underlying factors controlling their position in the labour market have also been explored.
Another first for the NATSIS was the establishment of national estimates of important labour force indicators that have hitherto not been available for Indigenous people, at least not as direct estimates or in a form that could be cross-tabulated with other data. Most important here were estimates of employment in the CDEP scheme as well as in the community and private sectors of the labour market.
The regression analysis of employment outcomes has raised a number of important issues concerning the determinants of Indigenous labour force status. Of most significance in a policy context was the fact that education and training emerged as the largest single factors contributing to successful employment outcomes. However, it is clear that other factors, such as the impact of very high arrest rates among Indigenous youth, cannot be ignored. The combined impact of these effects underscores the fact that there are no quick fixes or simple solutions to improving employment outcomes; the task is inherently multi-faceted and across policy portfolios.
In policy terms, the value of the survey information is enhanced by the fact that comparable data on labour force status would not otherwise have been available until the release of results from the 1996 Census in July 1997. More practically, in terms of their broad scope, corresponding data will not be available again unless a similar exercise is undertaken in the future or some other steps are taken to ensure close auditing of the position of Indigenous people in the labour market.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission 1994, Review of the Aboriginal Employment Development Policy, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Canberra.
Altman, J.C. & Nieuwenhuysen, J. 1979, The Economic Status of Australian Aborigines, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Altman, J.C. (ed.) 1991, Aboriginal Employment Equity by the Year 2000, CAEPR Research Monograph No. 2, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia and Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra.
Broadhurst, R.G. 1992, 'Work and education: the effectiveness of programmes for prisoners', in Sirr P. (ed.) The Way Out: Proceedings of a Conference on the Role of Employment, Education and Training for Offenders in the Criminal Justice Systems, Outcare Inc., Northbridge.
Broadhurst, R., Maller, M. & Duffey, J. 1988, 'Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal recidivism in Western Australia: a failure rate analysis', Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, vol. 35, pp. 83-108.
Commonwealth of Australia 1985, Report of the Committee of Review of Aboriginal Employment and Training Programs, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.
Commonwealth of Australia 1987, AEDP Statement Policy Paper No 1, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.
Commonwealth of Australia 1991a, Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, National Report volume 2, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.
Commonwealth of Australia 1991b, Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, National Report volume 4, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.
Commonwealth of Australia 1991c, Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, National Report volume 5, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.
Commonwealth of Australia 1995a, Justice Under Scrutiny, Report of the implementation by governments of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra.
Coombs, H.C., McCann, H., Ross, H. & Williams, N.M. (eds) 1989, Land of Promises: Aborigines and Development in the East Kimberley, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra.
Daly, A.E. 1995, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in the Australian Labour Market: 1986 and 1991, ABS Cat. No. 6253.0, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra.
Fisk, E.K. 1985, The Aboriginal Economy in Town and Country, George Allen and Unwin, Sydney.
Gale, F, Bailey-Harris, R & Wundersitz, J. 1990, Aboriginal Youth and the Criminal Justice System: the injustice of justice? Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Gregory, R.G. 1995, 'Higher education expansion and economic change',
Australian Bulletin of Labour, vol. 21 (4),
pp. 295- 322.
Taylor, J. 1993a, Regional Change in the Economic Status of Indigenous
Australians, 1986-91, CAEPR Monograph
No. 6, Centre for Aboriginal
Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra.
Taylor, J. 1993b, The Relative Economic Status of Indigenous Australians, 1986-91, CAEPR Monograph No. 5, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra.
Taylor, J & L. Jin. 1995, 'Change in the relative distribution of Indigenous employment by industry, 1986-91', CAEPR Discussion Paper No. 96, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, Australian National University, Canberra.
A copy of the report can be ordered from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Client Services, ABS, PO Box 10, Belconnen ACT, Australia 2616, or by telephone on (06) 252 5249. Also, the report can be ordered from government bookshops in all states and territories. l
* The bibliographic references referred to are limited to those that relate to the text reproduced from the report [Editorial note].
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