ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the home consumption practices of a sample of British migrant women, mainly nurses and midwives, living in Perth, Western Australia. It argues that there is a gap between the state category of skilled migrant, into which these women must fit, and the subjective reasons for their migration, most often reported as a lifestyle choice. The chapter looks at the bureaucratic classification of skilled migrant to the lived experience of these women in a country where ‘acquisition of the family home is likened to the attainment of the national dream’. It focuses on the act of house buying as a significant factor in their efforts to establish belonging. In both the Australian and British setting there is a ‘normative preference for homeownership’ where it is viewed as a ‘reflection of having achieved a desirable social status’. Buying into the lifestyle is key to belonging among this cohort of Western Australia’s British migrant community.
