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South Australia’s Employment Relief Program for Assisted Immigrants: Promises and Reality, 1838-1843

Author

Listed:
  • Edwyna Harris

    (Monash University)

  • Sumner La Croix

    (University of Hawaii)

Abstract

Great Britain established the new colony of South Australia (SA) in 1834. The immigration contract signed by assisted migrants required the SA government to provide those who could not find private sector work with employment on public works. We use new data on the compensation of unemployed and private-sector workers to examine how the SA unemployment system functioned before and after the onset of a major economic crisis in August 1840. We conclude that the unemployment system provided highly compensated relief employment to a small number of migrants prior to the crisis but as migrant numbers claiming relief employment soared between August 1840 and October 1841, the government drastically cut compensation for relief employment. The cuts occurred in tandem with the government’s release of newly surveyed rural lands, which together provided incentives and opportunities for workers to move to rural areas to seek work on newly opened farms. A comparison of the SA employment relief program with the 1843 temporary employment relief program established in the neighboring colony of New South Wales (NSW) shows that the NSW program neither established guarantees of jobs for assisted migrants unable to find work nor provided jobs for all assisted migrants without work during the 1843-1845 period.

Suggested Citation

  • Edwyna Harris & Sumner La Croix, 2020. "South Australia’s Employment Relief Program for Assisted Immigrants: Promises and Reality, 1838-1843," Working Papers 202008, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hai:wpaper:202008
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    File URL: http://www.economics.hawaii.edu/research/workingpapers/WP_20-08.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Harris, Edwyna & La Croix, Sumner, 2021. "Understanding the gains to capitalists from colonization: Lessons from Robert E. Lucas, Jr., Karl Marx and Edward Gibbon Wakefield," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 187(C), pages 348-359.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    relief; unemployed; South Australia; migrants; public works;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J65 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment Insurance; Severance Pay; Plant Closings
    • N37 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Africa; Oceania
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

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