Research Proposal: Refugee Employment Challenges in Gatton, Australia

This research proposal investigates the challenges faced by refugees, particularly those in the Gatton area of Australia, in obtaining employment. The study, rooted in sociology, examines the impact of government policies, lack of services, and cultural awareness on employment opportunities. It explores the research gap concerning the specific experiences of refugees in Gatton, focusing on factors affecting employment, challenges encountered, and potential solutions. The methodology includes a descriptive research design, a simple random non-probability sampling method targeting the youth population, and qualitative data collection through questionnaires. Data analysis will employ an inductive approach using grounded theory, and ethical considerations are carefully addressed. The research plan spans six months, encompassing data collection, analysis, and feedback, with a detailed timeline and budget outlined. This comprehensive proposal aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of refugee employment barriers and inform strategies for improved outcomes.

Running head: SOCIOLOGY
SOCIOLOGY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Title - What are the challenges for people from refugee’s background in the Australian regional
and rural areas particularly in Gatton area; mainly with obtaining employment?
Introduction
A human might go through a settle journey which is a very complicated procedure. Due to the
result of the government policy of the year 2004, most of the refugees build their new life by
moving at the rural and regional areas of Australia. This is because small cities are very much
easy for settling in for the refugee community people (Australian Government.
Australian Institute of Family Studies.2008). The reason for the resettling policy of
new arrivals at the regional areas is for predominant addressing towards the decline of population
as well as the shortage of the labor at some of the regional areas (Zacher, 2019). Nevertheless,
there exists several challenges which are involved and effecting over the journey of refugee
settlements. These includes health, housing, employment and education (Alam & Imran,
2015). One of the major challenges faced by the refugee at the Gatton area is the limited
opportunity of employment. This research paper aims to explore the challenges regarding the
individuals of Gatton area regarding their lack of opportunity towards obtaining employment.
This is an extremely essential topic for exploring the challenges of the refugees which might
recommend some of the solutions and other options related to settlements. Since, employment is
one of the important stage of settlement, this research study explores the factors affecting
Australian refugees from obtaining employment. This research proposal will include an
introduction, review of literature, the research question and the aim of the research, the
methodology, ethics, research plan and finally limitations of research.

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Literature Review
As compared to the big cities, the experience related to settling at the rural and regional areas,
specifically in the Gatton areas is not at all an easy journey. The lack of proper access to
services, cultural awareness at the Gatton area are some of the major barriers of the community
people towards obtaining employment. High rate of unemployed refugees in the area with lack of
employment opportunities and non-consideration of educational qualification are some of the
conclusion of these challenges.
According to Allan, Briskman and Pease (2009), it is known that education and the
training are the key factors for up skilling the community people residing in the rural areas of
Australia. The experiences of the people residing in the rural areas of Gatton in Australia are
somewhat different from people residing in the urban counterparts. While the challenges of the
refugee people residing in the rural and the regional areas of Australia, specifically in the Gatton
area for obtaining employment opportunities has been the major topic of focus for most of the
research studies, the specific experiences and the targeted challenges faced by the refugees in
Gatton areas has not been researched before. According to Hussain, Wark & Ryan (2018), long
term unemployment rates tends to common in the rural areas than the urban areas. Although
there lies several challenges associated with unemployment for both people residing in both
urban and rural areas, the latter community population faces additional challenges that are linked
towards narrow employment range and geographical isolation as well as lack of proper training
opportunities (Sangha et al., 2017).
However most of the literature lacked focusing over the significant difficulties faced by the
community people residing in Gatton areas of Australia and also regarding the

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underdevelopment of the youth population. The gap in the review of the literature highlights the
structural barriers faced by the rural community people as well as the lack of the availability of
the seasonal employment opportunities together with poor housing and transport provisions
which inhibits the possibilities to obtain employment (Khawaja and Hebbani, 2018). The
research studies nevertheless did not explain the importance of the informal met works towards
the enhancement of the youth employment in the rural areas of Australia together with the
absence of the provision towards getting proper training and skills for employment.
Aim and research questions
The aim or the objective of this particular research study is targeted to identify the factors as well
as explore the challenges for people from refugee’s background in the Australian regional and
rural areas particularly in Gatton area, for obtaining employment opportunities. The research
questions for this particular study are as follows
1. What are the factors affecting the employment opportunities of the refugees at Gatton
area in Australia?
2. What are the challenges faced by rural refugees of Gatton area to obtain job in Australia?
3. What are the recommended steps for addressing the problems that Gatton area refugees
encounter to get employment opportunities?
Method
Design
Research design can be illustrated as a broad plan which states the aims and the objectives of the
project of the research together with providing the guidelines for realizing the objectives. The

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research design can be stated as the master plan for execution of the research project. For this
research study, the descriptive research design will be used since it is the most appropriate in this
context. According to Hebbani and Khawaja (2019), Descriptive research design involves the
description of the problem with relevant solution. In context to the study, the descriptive research
design will be used since it is more specific and a purposive study. Descriptive research design
will be work for this research project and this design will be the most appropriate for my
research questions since it will present the researcher with the opportunity to fuse both the
qualitative and the quantitative data for resolving the research question of the study. This will
help the researcher to find the solution of the research study and provide answer to
unemployment . This research design will enable the researcher to have a wider view of the
issues including the analysis of all the facts.
Furthermore , another major advantages of the descriptive research is that the researcher will get
the chance to accumulate findings from several forms of data including survey, interviews,
observations, case studies and more. This research design provides number of answers to several
aspects due to the involvement of observation and personal elements.
Sample
The sampling strategy can be essentially defined as the manner in which the author of the
study will collect the data for the study. The sampling strategy identifies the manner in which the
sample population will be selected (Gentles et al., 2015). For the purpose of the study, the
Simple Random Non- Probability sampling method will be adopted. In this sampling method, the
participants will not be chosen on a random basis (Bell, Bryman & Harley, 2018). The author
aims to target the Youth of the region in order to understand the reason why the Employment
issues take place in the enterprise. In consideration to this, the Youth will be connected via the

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internet using email as a medium. A close ended questionnaire will be distributed to the
participants and their opinions would be collected. The sample size has been selected as 150.
The reason why the Simple Random Non probability sampling has been selected because
this method of sampling method would be appropriate for the study and the target population
which has been selected as the Youth would be able to answer this question in the most
appropriate manner (Drake, Rancilio & Stafford, 2017). By following this sample method and
the research instrument of a close ended survey, the participants would be asked questions about
the current state of the economy, the reasons for unemployment and means to improve the
scenario in an effective manner.
Data collection
Data collection is the procedure regarding the gathering as well as the measurement of the
information over the variables of interest at an established systematic process which enables for
answering research question and the evaluation of the outcomes. The component of the data
collection within the research with the inclusion of social and physical sciences, ensuring honest
and accurate collections. According to Hamilton et al. (2018), regardless of the field of study and
the data preferences, accurate collection of data is extremely important for the maintenance of
the research integrity. For conducting a research in an appropriate and correct way, the
researcher needs data. The entire process of the research is conducted with either the primary or
the secondary data. As per the literature, primary data is the data or the information which is
collected from the survey, interviews and questionnaires. Nevertheless, secondary set of data
collection refers to the information that is gathered by the researcher from journal articles, books
which already contains data regarding the topic of study. For a correct process or conducting

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any of the research, the researcher needs to collect both primary and secondary data. The primary
data allows the researcher for conducting a survey on the basis of which he can analyze the data,
secondary data on the other hand will allow the researcher to rely majorly over the journals and
the books which has already been published. For this particular research study, the researcher
will collect qualitative data. The researcher will collect data from 150 refugees residing in Gatton
area. This research study will specifically target the youth population in the refugee community
living in the rural areas of Australia. A survey questionnaire will be prepared with open ended
questions and the concept and perception of each and every sample will be taken in consideration
for analyzing the survey result.
Analysis
For this research study, the researcher will collect qualitative data from 150 population residing
in the rural region of the Gatton area of Australia. The survey questionnaire that the researcher
will use will help in gathering specific data related to the challenges faced by the population in
the rural areas to obtain specific employment opportunities. The researcher will use an inductive
approach referring to grounded theory for conducting and collective qualitative data for the
research. The inductive approach will be appropriate since it will narrow the scope of the study
with the use of the research questions. The researcher will also use observation methodology for
conclusing result for the research study. The author will be using grounded theory since it will
provide sequential and explicit guidelines for doing the qualitative research study. Furthermore
the grounded theory will offer strategies towards handling analytic phase related top enquiry. As
per Tran et al. (2017), grounded theory refers to the set of the systematic inductive methodology
that a researcher uses towards the development of theory.

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According to research studies, one of the biggest benefit for the researcher regarding the
inductive reasoning is that he will get to work with several range of possibilities. It begins with
specific observations and helps the researcher to explore the research context.
Ethics
This research study will address and follow each of the principle related to the National
Statement. Though the population that the researcher will be exploring and investigating is a
vulnerable population residing in the rural area of Australia, the researcher will follow all the
ethical guidelines of the study. The researcher will manage the vulnerable population by firstly
taking their consent before asking them for participation for the survey questionnaires. Ethical
approval and clearance is needed from the participants of the survey before using the data given
by them. The researcher will use strict ethical guidelines and during the collection of the research
data, no participants will be forced for participation in the survey. No logo or symbol portraying
any advertisement will be used for the research study. In case of any authorization, the researcher
will take permission by proper authorization letter from the university. For carrying out the
secondary research , the researcher will avoid plagiarism.
Research Plan
The study will be conducted over a period of 6 months. These 6 months will be based on
research work, gaining feedback, data collection and the analysis of the same. The Gantt chart
has been highlighted as follows:
Activity Months
M
Jan
M
Feb
M
Mar
M
April
M
May
M
June
M
July

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Finalizing the topic of the research 
Collecting the data from secondary
sources for the review of Literature
 
Formation of the layout of the
research work

Conducting the Literature review   
Formation of the research plan  
Selecting appropriate research
methodologies for the study
 
Collecting data from primary sources
and conducting the survey
 
Analysis of collected data sets from
the participants
 
Interpretation of collected data sets 
Concluding the Study conducted 
Designing a rough draft and
feedback
 
Submission of the Final Work  

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Brief description of the resources required
The resources which would be required for the study can be stated to be as follows:
1. Access to databases for secondary research: This will help in understanding similar
research work undertaken in the domain.
2. Access to participants: This will assist in carrying out the survey.
3. Access to email and the internet: This will assist in distribution of the survey form and
collection of data (Walliman, 2017).
4. Access to Data analysis tool: This will assist in quantifying the results of the discussion
5. Monetary resources: For travelling, browsing and printing
6. Time resources: Opportunity cost
Budget
Item Cost
Access to Data base $50
Travelling expenses $500
Internet and Printing $200
Data collection $100
Total $850
Limitations
There is bound to be numerous limitations while conducting a research study. Regarding this
particular research study, time frame is the first limitation. Furthermore, the availability and the
willingness to participate in the survey by the youth population of rural area is another limitation.

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It might happen that many of the community people residing in Gatton area might to feel eager
to participate or might not be available. Many youth might mislead regarding the challenges they
face while searching for employment opportunities or simply denies to share their challenges.
Thus the responses gained from the survey questionnaires might be enough for concluding any
specific outcome (Vass, Rigby & Payne, 2017). Limitations furthermore lie regarding the
availability and gaining of permission regarding the interview dates with the rural community
people. The above are some of the major threats of the research study. However, the researcher
will address these by keeping a positive motive and a compromising attitude. The researcher
should also carry an influential attire and motive the population residing in the rural areas to
speak up their challenges with the assurance of publishing the challenges within his research
project. The researcher should also make the youth population understand regarding the
importance of informal networking and how expression their problems and challenges to get any
job opportunities and the discrimination they are facing in the Australia job market might help
this issue to get highlighted which might instigate the government of the country to take some of
the drastic actions for this challenge.

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References
Alam, K., & Imran, S. (2015). The digital divide and social inclusion among
refugee migrants: A case in regional Australia. Information Technology
& People, 28(2), 344-365.
Allan, J. &Briskman, L. & Pease, B. (2009). Critical Social Work. NSW,
Australia.
Australian Government. Australian Institute of Family Studies.(2008).
Effective Regional, rural and remote relationships Service Delivery.
Retrieved from: https://aifs.gov.au/cfca/publications/effective-regional-
rural-and-remote-family-and-relationship.
Bell, E., Bryman, A., & Harley, B. (2018). Business research methods. Oxford university press.
Drake, B. F., Rancilio, D. M., & Stafford, J. D. (2017). Research methods. In Public Health
Research Methods for Partnerships and Practice (pp. 174-187). Routledge.
Gentles, S. J., Charles, C., Ploeg, J., & McKibbon, K. (2015). Sampling in qualitative research:
Insights from an overview of the methods literature. The Qualitative Report, 20(11),
1772-1789.
Hamilton, G. S., Swann, L., Kutty, S., Hearn, G. N., Nayak, R., Donovan, J., ... & Hellens, R.
(2018). Detecting Opportunities and Challenges for Australian Rural Industries.
Hebbani, A., & Khawaja, N. G. (2019). Employment Aspirations of Former Refugees Settled in
Australia: a Mixed Methods Study. Journal of International Migration and
Integration, 20(3), 907-924.