UK Aussies a refined lot

By James Button

Europe Correspondent
London

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/09/29/1127804608188.html

September 30, 2005

SHE is in her 20s, working as a professional and earning the equivalent of $50,000 to $150,000 a year. Though she plans to return home one day, she has a British husband and is even buying her home. Meet the typical Australian living in Britain.

It's a far cry from the "Bazza McKenzie" and backpacking image of Australians in London.

In a paper given to a London conference yesterday, Adelaide geographer Graeme Hugo cited Australian Immigration Department statistics showing that 46 per cent of Australians who make permanent or long-term departures to Britain are now professionals, while a further 10 per cent are managers and administrators.

Professor Hugo said young Australian women were more likely than men to engage in what he calls "rite-of-passage migration" to Britain.

Two-thirds of people who left Australia for the UK in the past 10 years were aged 20 to 29, and nearly 56 per cent of them were female — a contrast to usual emigration figures, which are dominated by men.

While some educated emigrants may be pulling beers in a London pub, another survey of Australian graduates working in Britain showed that 30 per cent were earning the equivalent of $100,000 or more, and another 33 per cent more than $50,000.

Of the 660 graduates surveyed, two-thirds were married. Of these, a third had an Australian partner, while half had a partner born in the UK. A quarter had married since they left Australia. While 55 per cent planned to return to Australia one day, more than half owned or were buying a home in the UK.

Presented at The Australian Diaspora in Britain since 1901, a conference funded by Monash University's Institute for the Study of Global Movements, Professor Hugo's paper shows profound changes in the movement of people between Australia and Britain in the past 30 years.

While fewer Britons are leaving to live permanently in Australia (the UK share of Australia's overseas-born population is at an all-time low of 25 per cent) since the 1990s there has been a "spectacular increase" in people on working holidays and tourists. After the Japanese, Britons now comprise the largest number of short-term visitors to Australia.

The changes reflect shifts in "global international migration away from settlement migration to increased circularity in flows but also a shift in Australian immigration policy, which for the first time, (has) allowed substantial temporary immigration for work," Professor Hugo said.

Among other changes, in 2001 and 2002, "there were more permanent departures from Australia to the UK" than the other way, reversing a 200-year pattern. While it is unclear how many Australians live in the UK — many are not counted in the census — Professor Hugo cited several estimates of 300,000.