Oceania · data through 2024
Australia has built one of the world's most diverse populations through a planned migration programme and a very large student intake.
Twenty five year view
These lines show migrant stock, meaning people living outside their birth country at each point in time. They do not show annual arrivals.
Why people move
Skilled, family, and humanitarian streams operate under an annual planning level, with India, China, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines among the largest origins. Regional visas try to direct settlement away from the two largest cities.
Connections
Common destinations
United Kingdom, New Zealand, United States, Canada
Common origins
United Kingdom, India, China, New Zealand, Philippines, Vietnam
Adapting and finding support
Temporary visa holders make up a large share of arrivals and have limited access to public support. Distance from family is a specific and recurring strain.
Migrant resource centres and community legal centres are free and widely available.
Use the support guideResearch that explains this pattern
Psychology
Arriving people navigate two questions at once: how much of the culture of origin to keep, and how much of the new culture to take on. The combinations give integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalisation.
Integration, keeping both, is consistently linked to better wellbeing than any of the other three.
John W. Berry, acculturation theory
Psychology
Grief without a body or an ending, a parent alive but unreachable, a home that still exists but cannot be returned to, resists ordinary mourning.
Families hold the loss open for years, and closure focused support can do harm rather than help.
Pauline Boss, ambiguous loss theory
Psychology
Children of immigrants do not follow one path. Outcomes depend on the parents' resources, the strength of the community, and the reception they meet.
The same family can produce very different outcomes across cities and school systems.
Alejandro Portes and Rubén Rumbaut, segmented assimilation
Support inside and beyond Australia
Official information on settlement services, English classes, and support.
New arrivals and humanitarian entrants
OpenInformation, referral, and advocacy for refugees and people seeking asylum.
Refugees and people seeking asylum
OpenAssistance, voluntary return, reintegration, and counter trafficking support through the local office.
Anyone moving, arriving, or returning
OpenThese are public organisations. The project is not affiliated with them and cannot guarantee outcomes. Nothing here is legal advice or an emergency service.
Figures are rounded published estimates. Causes and adaptation differ within every country and should not be read as a verdict about any person.