Settlement trajectories of nearly 25,000 forced migrants in New Zealand: longitudinal insights from administrative data

Aotearoa New Zealand provides differential settlement support to forced migrants, primarily determined by how they receive protection status – as asylum seekers, refugees, or through other visa pathways. Despite these differences, there is limited quantitative evidence of their settlement outcomes related to work, social welfare, education and housing. In response, this study presents administrative data of adults from refugee backgrounds composed of four distinct subgroups (quota refugee, convention refugee, family reunification, and asylum seeker) to explore their access to these main services post-settlement and ascertain longitudinal income trajectories. Using the Integrated Data Infrastructure (IDI), we identified 24,894 working-age adults from refugee backgrounds who first received refugee recognition, an asylum-seeker visa or a family reunification visa between 1997 and 2020. We describe these cohorts’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics and access to services by drawing from a range of government and census datasets. We then present a mixed model regression to illustrate the association of longitudinal income with years from arrival and other settlement indicators: controlling for age, gender, and refugee subgroups. Findings show outcome disparities between refugee groups and highlight the policy implications for supporting positive settlement outcomes, particularly emphasising the first five years of settlement.

奥特亚罗瓦新西兰（Aotearoa New Zealand）为被迫移民提供差异化定居支持，支持力度主要依据其获得的保护身份类型而定——具体分为寻求庇护者、难民，或通过其他签证渠道入境者三类。尽管存在上述身份差异，目前针对该群体在就业、社会福利、教育与住房领域的定居结果的定量研究证据仍较为有限。为此，本研究采用来自难民背景成年群体的行政数据，该数据集涵盖四个明确亚组：配额难民（quota refugee）、公约难民（convention refugee）、家庭团聚类移民及寻求庇护者，旨在探究他们在定居后对上述核心服务的获取情况，并明确其纵向收入轨迹。本研究借助综合数据基础设施（Integrated Data Infrastructure, IDI），筛选出1997年至2020年间首次获得难民身份认定、寻求庇护者签证或家庭团聚签证的24894名难民背景劳动年龄成年人。我们通过整合多份政府及人口普查数据集，对这批队列群体的人口统计学特征、社会经济属性，以及服务获取情况进行了描述性分析。随后，我们构建混合效应回归模型，以阐明纵向收入与入境年限及其他定居指标之间的关联，模型控制了年龄、性别及难民亚组变量。研究结果显示不同难民群体间存在定居结果差异，并明确了助力实现良好定居结果的政策启示，尤其强调了定居首五年的关键作用。