Analysis of LisNZ data to date has primarily explored skilled principal migrants and their settlement and labour market outcomes. However, the settlement of family members and the labour market outcomes of partners are equally as important to understand.
Purpose
The purpose of this report is to describe the settlement and labour market outcomes of migrant partners and the factors related to the settlement of families (partners and children).
Whilst previous reports based on LisNZ have highlighted some outcomes of skilled secondary and family partner migrants, the current study focusses exclusively on migrant partners and their children in order to gain a more complete picture of their labour market and settlement outcomes.
Methodology
The current study utilised a sub-population of the LisNZ sample to specifically explore the characteristics of migrant partners in New Zealand. This sub-sample (referred to as migrant partners throughout this report) included all LisNZ participants who:
- gained permanent residence as a family partner under the Partnership Category
- were secondary applicants5 as the partner/spouse of a principal applicant.
The sample consisted of 2,288 ‘migrant partners’ at Wave 3.
The values provided in this report are based on weighted data, and as such can be considered representative of the general migrant partner population. Group comparisons in this report have been tested for statistical significance at the 95 percent confidence level.
The migrant partners included in this analysis were primarily family partner migrants (43 percent) or skilled secondary migrants (40 percent). The remaining 17 percent of migrant partners were approved under a variety of migration categories and for the purposes of this report will be referred to as ‘other’.