Are Visa-Based Dispersal Policies Effective in Attracting and Retaining Skilled Migrants in Rural Australia?

Australia offers regional visa schemes for skilled migrants who reside in nonmetropolitan Australia for a minimum of 2 years to alleviate nonmetropolitan depopulation and skills shortages. To assess the efficacy of this program in attracting and retaining migrants, we apply survival analysis to administrative longitudinal microdata from the Person Level Integrated Data Asset linked to census data from 2010 to 2020. We find that this program attracts few new migrants to regional Australia given that over 80% of regional visa holders applied onshore. Furthermore, close to 65% were already in a nonmetropolitan region for an average of 2 years while the remainder took on average 7 months to relocate to a nonmetropolitan area from overseas or from within Australia. While nonmetropolitan retention is high — 70% after 10 years — it is significantly lower in remote and very remote regions, and it is lower than the Australian population at large, suggesting limited policy efficacy in retaining rural populations in the long term. We also identify a negative selection, with migrants with low English proficiency being more likely to remain in nonmetropolitan regions, which suggests a possible segmentation of nonmetropolitan labor markets where migrants are concentrated in low-wage sectors. Two policy levers emerge to improve retention: (1) targeting co-ethnic communities and (2) focusing on young families with children. The mixed results from this policy evaluation highlight the difficulties of stimulating nonmetropolitan population growth via immigration.