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Most members of new and emerging communities are settled in the Perth metropolitan area, a trend similar to people from NMES countries. The Local Government Areas (LGAs) in which they mainly live are Stirling, Wanneroo, Gosnells, Swan, Canning, Bayswater, Belmont, Armadale, Joondalup, Kalamunda, South Perth and Victoria Park. Except for Canning and Belmont, ranking of the top LGAs differed for each group (Table 4).

Regional LGAs have low numbers of people from new and emerging communities. Only Mandurah, Katanning, Albany, Kalgoorlie/Boulder, Busselton, Karratha and Greater Geraldton have more than 100 people from these communities, who were mainly born in Thailand, Burma, and/or Afghanistan.

English proficiency and linguistic diversity

Most people (82 per cent) from new and emerging communities reported speaking a language other than English as the main language spoken at home, while 16.5 per cent spoke only English at home. In contrast, just 17.6 per cent of all Western Australians speak a LOTE as their main language at home and 75.2 per cent speak English only.

The most common languages other than English spoken were Middle Eastern and African languages. Except for Arabic, none were among the most common languages other than English (LOTE) spoken at home by Western Australians (Table 5). Twenty-five per cent of LOTE speakers from new and emerging communities rated their English language proficiency as ‘high’ while 75 per cent rated it ‘low’, compared with 86 per cent and 14 per cent of all WA LOTE speakers, respectively.

Except for Amharic, Dinka and Oromo, all the top languages spoken by people from new and emerging communities are those spoken by people with low English proficiency in WA (Table 6A).

Birthplaces with a significant proportion of people with low English language proficiency are Syria (37 per cent), Afghanistan (32.6 per cent), Burma (25.3 per cent), Iraq (24.5 per cent), Eritrea (20.6 per cent) and Albania (16.4 per cent) (Table 6B). Eight of the 19 birthplaces have a level of English language proficiency (10–15 per cent) comparable with WA’s LOTE speakers.

Religious affiliation

People from new and emerging communities are mainly affiliated with Christianity (38 per cent), Islam (31 per cent) and Buddhism (22 per cent) (Figure 3A). Except for Albania and Uzbekistan, few members of new and emerging communities identify as having no religion. Most communities are typified by a dominant faith (such as Christianity or Islam) (Figure 3B) except for Eritrea, which has a similar proportion of Christians and Muslims. Thailand and Burma have the highest proportion of Buddhists (70.8 per cent and 20.8 per cent, respectively), which impacts the average figure.

With larger proportions of people affiliated with Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, religious diversity in new and emerging communities is more pronounced, compared with all Western Australians and people born in NMES countries (Figure 3A). This is because the majority in these two groups identified with Christianity (48.7 per cent and 49.8 per cent, respectively), no religion or secular beliefs (33 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively), and smaller proportions with non-Christian religions (ranging between 0.2 per cent and 2 per cent, and between 0.2 per cent and 8.8 per cent, respectively).

Educational attainment⁵

Only 15.8 per cent of adults from new and emerging communities (15.3 per cent for Group 1 and 19.4 per cent for Group 2) had obtained a tertiary qualification. This is similar to the WA average of 18.6 per cent but significantly lower than for all Western Australians who were born in NMES countries (32.8 per cent).

Analysis by birthplace shows large variations, ranging from seven per cent each for Afghanistan and Liberia, to 44 per cent for Libya and Uzbekistan (Table 7). The rate for tertiary qualification was below average for most birthplaces.

Almost one-fifth (19.1 per cent) had low (Year 8 or below), or no education. The rate also varied between birthplaces, with Afghanistan having the highest proportion with low or no education (41 per cent) while Malawi, Libya, Uganda and Uzbekistan had the lowest (between zero and three per cent). This compares with 3.8 per cent for all Western Australians and 8.4 per cent for people born in NMES countries.

Birthplaces in which people have a high, above average and average level of low English proficiency were among those with a larger proportion of adult members with low/no education.⁶

Employment

The employment rate for people from new and emerging communities is 49.6 per cent, lower than the average rates for all Western Australians (55 per cent) and all those born in NMES (58 per cent). Birthplaces of new and emerging community members are almost equally divided between those with average and below average rates of employment compared with WA and NMES countries (Table 8). People born in Syria and Iraq had the lowest rates of employment––30.8 per cent and 30.4 per cent, respectively. Malawi and Sierra Leone had the highest employment rates—68.9 per cent and 64 per cent, respectively.

Except for Burma and Thailand, the unemployment rate for new and emerging communities was higher than for all Western Australians (4.9 per cent) and those born in NMES countries (6.2 per cent) (Table 8). Unemployment rates were higher for people born in the Democratic Republic of Congo (15.4 per cent), Somalia (15.1 per cent), Uzbekistan (14.7 per cent), South Sudan (14.1 per cent), Republic of Congo (13.3 per cent), Liberia (12.4 per cent) and Libya (12 per cent).

Footnotes

1. In the first stage, birthplaces with the majority of migrants arriving in WA between 10 August 2006 and 9 August 2016 were identified from the 2016 census. In the second stage, controlling for these countries and their periods of arrival, visa status was then identified from the settlement database.
2. The Skilled Migration Program is subject to strict occupational and English language requirements with people arriving through the program achieving more positive settlement outcomes.
3. The name 'Burma' is used as it is more easily recognised than 'Myanmar'. It also more readily links to 'Burmese' ancestry and language; 'Myanmar' does not have an equivalent adjective in English. The ABS refers to Myanmar for country of birth, and Burmese in relation to defining language and ancestry.
4. Of the five birthplaces, the populations of those born in the Ivory Coast, Senegal and Togo were fewer than 100 and therefore did not qualify for the population threshold used in this study. As 37.2 per cent of the Tanzania born arrived as skilled migrants, they did not meet the methodological criteria used for the same. The Burundi born did not meet the year of arrival criteria.
5. Data on educational attainment, employment and unemployment and income is for adults aged 15 years and over.
6. Average figures are derived from Western Australian and/or NMES countries’ averages.