Building a New Life in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Humanitarian Migrants (BNLA) aims to identify factors which help or hinder positive settlement outcomes. BNLA follows 1,509 humanitarian migrating units who arrived in Australia or had their permanent visas granted in the six months between May and December 2013. Participants include offshore visa holders who arrived in Australia holding a permanent humanitarian visa and onshore visa holders who received their permanent protection visa between May and December 2013. Wave 1 took place from October 2013 to March 2014 interviewing 2,399 principal and secondary applicants. The first five waves of data collection were conducted annually. Waves 1, 3 and 5 interviews were conducted face-to-face and waves 2 and 4 interviews were conducted by telephone. Wave 6 was conducted 5 years after wave 5, between January and July 2023. Wave 6 data was collected online and face-to-face. The survey and participant materials were translated into 14 languages in wave 1, 9 languages in waves 2 - 5 and 5 languages in Wave 6. Interviews were conducted by bilingual interviewers; some interviews also used interpreters (interviews were conducted in nineteen languages in total in waves 1 and 2, thirteen languages in Wave 3, eleven languages in Wave 4, and ten languages in Wave 5 and seven languages in wave 6). For waves 2 and 4, shorter telephone interviews omit some of the questions asked in the longer face-to-face interviews. Topics covered by the study include: demographics, immigration experience, housing and neighbourhood, English language proficiency, education and training, employment and income, health, self-sufficiency, community support, personal resources and life satisfaction, and life in Australia. Additional modules include the child module in Wave 3, childcare and gender roles from Wave 5 and the COVID-19 and youth module in Wave 6. Researchers interested in using this data should note: (1) BNLA does not include data about migrants in the family and skilled streams of the permanent Migration Program; (2) BNLA only includes humanitarian migrants who arrived/were granted a visa during a specific time period; (3) Analysis at the state level is not possible.
Access: Available with Approval | Data Quality:
Best Quality
Contact Person: LongitudinalStudies@dss.gov.au
The 45 and Up Study is a large Australian cohort study that began recruiting in 2005 and is described on a webpage created as part of the Sax Institute’s 2022 site update. Over 15 years of longitudinal data from surveys covering broad health and social topics alongside linked datasets from medicare, PBS, hospital, and cancer registry.
Access: Available with Approval | Data Quality:
Best Quality
Contact Person: 45andUp@saxinstitute.org.au
The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey is a nationally representative longitudinal study of Australian households that commenced in 2001. Funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS), the HILDA Survey is managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne.
Access: Open | Data Quality:
Best Quality
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