IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/joprea/v42y2025i2d10.1007_s12546-025-09372-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sticky places for immigrants in regional Australia – a correlational analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Leena Bakshi

    (The University of Western Australia)

  • Fiona Haslam-McKenzie

    (The University of Western Australia)

  • Julian Bolleter

    (The University of Western Australia)

  • George Wilkinson

    (The University of Western Australia)

Abstract

Since 1996, migration-related schemes have directed new immigrants and refugees to regional Australia to mitigate the need for skills and people in these locations. Therefore, the long-term settlement of immigrants and refugees in regional Australia is an important issue. Existing research has examined settlement patterns, processes, and internal dispersal; however, the reasons why immigrants arrive at, remain at, or leave these locations after the period stipulated in their migration visa are not fully understood. To address this gap, this paper draws on stickiness - the ability of geographic clusters to attract and retain migrants, to understand the reasons for long-term retention better. To understand their impact on long-term immigrant retention, we examine 62 local government areas in Western Australia through descriptive statistics and correlational analysis using demographic data and 11 variables comprising economic, social infrastructure, and location-related data. Our findings show that the quantity of schools, health services, distance to coast, and median income have the most significant impact on the stickiness of a place.

Suggested Citation

  • Leena Bakshi & Fiona Haslam-McKenzie & Julian Bolleter & George Wilkinson, 2025. "Sticky places for immigrants in regional Australia – a correlational analysis," Journal of Population Research, Springer, vol. 42(2), pages 1-30, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:joprea:v:42:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s12546-025-09372-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s12546-025-09372-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12546-025-09372-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12546-025-09372-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:sae:mrxval:v:31:y:1997:i:4:p:826-874 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Mercedes Delgado & Michael E. Porter & Scott Stern, 2016. "Defining clusters of related industries," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 1-38.
    3. repec:osf:socarx:3qhcz_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Baker, Emma & Coffee, Neil T & Page, Kira & Daniel, Lyrian & Sarkar, Somwrita, 2024. "Improving small area population projections," SocArXiv 3qhcz, Center for Open Science.
    5. Paul Voss, 2007. "Demography as a Spatial Social Science," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 26(5), pages 457-476, December.
    6. Peter J. Taylor & Ben Derudder, 2022. "Cities in Castells' Theorising of Social Space," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 113(3), pages 250-256, July.
    7. Zhou, Heng & Xia, Jianhong (Cecilia) & Luo, Qingzhou & Nikolova, Gabi & Sun, Jie & Hughes, Brett & Kelobonye, Keone & Wang, Hui & Falkmer, Torbjorn, 2018. "Investigating the impact of catchment areas of airports on estimating air travel demand: A case study of regional Western Australia," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 91-103.
    8. Yiğit Evren & Ayşe Nur Ökten, 2017. "Stickiness and slipperiness in Istanbul’s old city jewellery cluster: a survival story," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(4), pages 893-911.
    9. Ann Markusen, 1996. "Sticky Places in Slippery Space: A Typology of Industrial Districts," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 72(3), pages 293-313, July.
    10. Duncan, Alan & Harris, Mark N. & Mavisakalyan, Astghik & Nguyen, Toan, 2020. "Migration flows in commodity cycles: Assessing the role of migration policies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    11. Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Siew-Ean Khoo (ed.), 2006. "Public Policy and Immigrant Settlement," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3734.
    12. James Raymer & Bernard Baffour, 2018. "Subsequent Migration of Immigrants Within Australia, 1981–2016," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 37(6), pages 1053-1077, December.
    13. James Raymer & Yanlin Shi & Qing Guan & Bernard Baffour & Tom Wilson, 2018. "The Sources and Diversity of Immigrant Population Change in Australia, 1981–2011," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(5), pages 1777-1802, October.
    14. repec:sae:mrxval:v:54:y:2020:i:2:p:328-355 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abbasiharofteh, Milad & Hermans, Frans, 2025. "Using archetypal analysis to derive a typology of knowledge networks in European bioclusters," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 59(1), pages 1-17.
    2. Campi, Mercedes & Dueñas, Marco, 2022. "Clusters and Resilience during the COVID–19 Crisis: Evidence from Colombian Exporting Firms," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 12527, Inter-American Development Bank.
    3. Carla Costa & Rui Baptista, 2023. "Knowledge inheritance and performance of spinouts," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 13(1), pages 29-55, March.
    4. Auerswald, Philip & Dani, Lokesh, 2022. "Entrepreneurial opportunity and related specialization in economic ecosystems," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(9).
    5. Yang, Yang & Shang, Han Lin & Raymer, James, 2024. "Forecasting Australian fertility by age, region, and birthplace," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 532-548.
    6. Bernd Wurth & Erik Stam & Ben Spigel, 2022. "Toward an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Research Program," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 46(3), pages 729-778, May.
    7. Adem Sakarya, 2023. "Clustering potential of organized industrial zones in Türkiye," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 255-276, March.
    8. Deepak Chandrashekar & M. H. Bala Subrahmanya & Kshitija Joshi & Tathagat Priyadarshi, 2019. "Effect of Innovation on Firm Performance — The Case of a Technology Intensive Manufacturing Cluster in India," International Journal of Innovation and Technology Management (IJITM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 16(07), pages 1-31, November.
    9. Pengfei Li & Harald Bathelt, 2018. "Location strategy in cluster networks," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 49(8), pages 967-989, October.
    10. Marta Gancarczyk, 2010. "Model schyłku i odrodzenia klastrów," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 1-21.
    11. Kean Birch & Andrew Cumbers, 2010. "Knowledge, Space, and Economic Governance: The Implications of Knowledge-Based Commodity Chains for Less-Favoured Regions," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 42(11), pages 2581-2601, November.
    12. Roberta Rabellotti & Alessia Amighini, 2003. "The effect of globalisation on industrial districts in Italy: evidence from the footwear sector," ERSA conference papers ersa03p500, European Regional Science Association.
    13. V. I. Blanutsa, 2022. "Geographic Research of the Platform Economy: Existing and Potential Approaches," Regional Research of Russia, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 133-142, June.
    14. Tse-Chuan Yang & Stephen A Matthews, 2015. "Death by Segregation: Does the Dimension of Racial Segregation Matter?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-26, September.
    15. Andrews, RJ & Fazio, Catherine & Guzman, Jorge & Liu, Yupeng & Stern, Scott, 2022. "The Startup Cartography Project: Measuring and mapping entrepreneurial ecosystems," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(2).
    16. Sam Tavassoli & Viroj Jienwatcharamongkhol & Pia Arenius, 2023. "Colocation of Entrepreneurs and New Firm Survival: Role of New Firm Founder’s Experiential Relatedness to Local Entrepreneurs," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 47(4), pages 1421-1459, July.
    17. Giovanni Facchini & Anna Maria Mayda, 2009. "The Political Economy of Immigration Policy," Human Development Research Papers (2009 to present) HDRP-2009-03, Human Development Report Office (HDRO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), revised Apr 2009.
    18. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Tobias D. Ketterer, 2012. "Do Local Amenities Affect The Appeal Of Regions In Europe For Migrants?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(4), pages 535-561, October.
    19. Mercedes Delgado & Michael E. Porter & Scott Stern, 2016. "Defining clusters of related industries," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 1-38.
    20. Sacchetti, Silvia & Tortia, Ermanno, 2012. "The internal and external governance of cooperatives: the effective membership and consistency of value," AICCON Working Papers 111-2012, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:joprea:v:42:y:2025:i:2:d:10.1007_s12546-025-09372-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.