Abstract: Recent research by Gray and Hunter has identified strong non-CDEP employment growth for Indigenous Australians over the period 1994 to 2008. This paper attempts to identify the types of jobs Indigenous people are obtaining, with a particularly focus on hours of work, underemployment and the extent to which work allows for cultural responsibilities. The paper also explores which social, cultural and demographic characteristics that are associated with the greatest increases in employment between 1994 and 2008 and estimates the extent to which changes in employment rates can be attributable to observable characteristics such as educational attainment, demographic characteristics and geographic location.

Matthew Gray is Professor of Indigenous Public Policy at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research at The Australian National University. He was previously Deputy Director of the Australian Institute of Family Studies and was Executive Project Manager of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. Matthew has undertaken research on a wide range of economic and social policy issues. He has undertaken large scale evaluations of government policies and programs including the 2006 changes to the family law system.

Boyd Hunter is Senor Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, The Australian National University where he specialises in labour market analysis, social economics and poverty research. He is currently on the Steering Committee for the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Australia (FaHCSIA), the Scientific Reference Group for the National Indigenous (Closing the Gaps) Clearinghouse (AIHW/AIFS), and has been the Managing Editor of the Australian Journal of Labour Economics since 2008. His publications span across many social science disciplines and, at last count, he had in excess of 1,000 scholarly citations