Precarity Before and During the Pandemic: International Student Employment and Personal Finances in Australia

Catherine Hastings; Gaby Ramia; Shaun Wilson; Emma Mitchell; Alan Morris

doi:10.1177/10283153211065136

Precarity Before and During the Pandemic: International Student Employment and Personal Finances in Australia

J Stud Int Educ. 2023 Feb;27(1):39-63. doi: 10.1177/10283153211065136.

Authors

Catherine Hastings¹, Gaby Ramia², Shaun Wilson³, Emma Mitchell¹, Alan Morris¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney Australia.
² Government and International Relations, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
³ Sociology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.

Abstract

There is mounting evidence of increased international student financial and work precarity over the last decade in Australia. Yet, there has been a little scholarly analysis of which students are most affected by precarity and its sources. Drawing on two surveys of international students in Australia's two largest cities, conducted before and during the pandemic, we investigate the financial and work vulnerabilities of international students. We demonstrate that vulnerability is related to characteristics which describe particular cohorts of students: being from low-income countries, working class families, seeking a low-level qualification, enrolled in a non-university institution, and being without a scholarship. The concepts of "noncitizenship" and "work precarity" are used to explain how the mechanisms of each characteristic heighten vulnerability, thereby contributing to a broader evidence-base about the causality of international student precarity.

Keywords: Australia; covid-19 pandemic; international students; noncitizenship; work precarity.