Women are being empowered under the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility (PALM) Scheme and some workers have reported that their marriages have improved.
At a roundtable discussion with the media yesterday, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Assistant First Secretary Jan Hutton said these were among the findings of a study on the social impacts of the PALM scheme.
She said getting more and better data was a priority.
“We supported a study by the Australian National University and the World Bank, an independent study. They surveyed around 2000 returning PALM workers and most of the survey questions were about not just their experience as a PALM worker but those social impacts.
“This is where we got the data that showed female empowerment, for example — more than 80 percent of our returning PALM workers said they felt more empowered when they returned home and they felt more financially independent from that survey.
“Two out of three workers, whether it was male or female, actually recorded improvements to their marital relationships.”
Ms Hutton said the data suggested “a more nuanced picture to what you sometimes hear”.
“But we’re really investing to get more and better data so that we can understand what those social impacts are and respond to it.
“When there is hard data, it presents a more nuanced picture, but don’t get me wrong — I’m not pretending that there aren’t those serious social impacts at all, but what we really need to do and like we did with disengagement is really understand it so we can respond in ways that’s going to make a difference.”
