A Measure of the Incidence of the Costs of Structural Change: The Experience of Birth place Groups in the Australian Labour Force during the Seventies*

During the 1970s there were some marked shifts in the occupational composition of the Australian workforce. It is sometimes argued that these had a particularly adverse effect on migrants. However we conclude that the structural pressures of the early 70s had only a minor impact on the relative labour market performances of different birthplace groups in Australia. The analysis involves the construction of a measure of the incidence of the costs of structural change. The correlation between the measure applied to birthplace groups and various indicators of their labour market performances is found to be low.