Understanding the Settlement and Retention of Humanitarian Migrants in Australia: Comparing Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan Areas

Despite a strong reliance by the Australian Government on dispersal policies that settle humanitarian migrants in non-metropolitan areas, we know little about the extent of non-metropolitan settlement, the level of retention, and its drivers. To address these knowledge gaps, this study provides new evidence for humanitarian migrants who arrived in Australia between 2006 and 2019 by applying event-history regression analyses to novel longitudinal, population-level administrative data from the Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA). Our findings indicate that the share of humanitarian migrants settling in non-metropolitan areas has remained stable at approximately 35%, yet only half remain in their non-metropolitan region of arrival five years on, compared with 60% in metropolitan regions. Both individual-level factors (such as country of birth, parental status and marital status) and place-based characteristics (such as co-ethnic network size, median income level and median rental price) influence retention. Even after controlling for place-based characteristics, retention is lower in more remote locations, which may be driven by limited access to services and infrastructure. Altogether, these findings suggest that fostering long-term retention requires greater consideration of opportunities and constraints in non-metropolitan areas and how these aligns with humanitarian migrants’ needs.