Following a continuing decline in representation in the Australian population, the Chinese community began again to show signs of life after the Second World War with numbers of wives and dependents beginning to arrive to join their husbands and fathers. This movement was made possible by the granting of naturalization rights to the Chinese in 1956. The pre‐war and post‐war trends of Chinese migration are surveyed, and are related to current marriage patterns among the Chinese in Melbourne.
A migrant group's dispersion into occup's not previously available or appealing to them is considered an index of the group's integration into the new society. The article discusses the study of a one-sixth random sample, consisting of 215 households of Chinese in Metropolitan Melbourne. The questionaire included questions on father's occup, & R's occup on arrival & present occup. The study was conducted from May to Oct, 1968. The history of Chinese immigration to Australia, the development of occup's of the Chinese community & the restrictive & discriminatory legislation forcing the Chinese in part to concentrate in certain occup's are discussed. Occup's are divided into Chinese & Australian. An occup is called Chinese either because the owners are mostly Chinese & hence contacts with Australians are limited or because it is traditionally linked with early Chinese occup's. The major finding of the study is the contrast between the occup'al mobility of the foreign-born & Australian-born Chinese. Movements toward Australian occup's take place primarily among Australian-born or those foreign-born who came to Australia while young & who have acquired an Australian occup. The foreign-born Chinese have accommodated themselves to Australia by forming an occup'al structure that is complementary to Australian society. The main Chinese occup's were at first gold-digging & cabinetmaking, then laundries & at present cafe ownership & fruit trade. The Australian-born Chinese who move away from Chinese occup's move mainly toward the major professions. Whatever the causes, a similar trend has been observed among Chinese in the US. 3 Tables & a Bibliog. A. Peskin.
