Australia's census is in

Marcus Roberts
April 20, 2017
Reproduced with Permission
Demography is Destiny

The Australian census was held last August. This is an event held every five years in the Lucky Country and the results are being drip-fed to the eagerly-waiting public in three batches this year. (The authorities are obviously concerned that too much Antipodean demographic information all at once might lead to extreme excitement and perhaps hysteria amongst the Australian populace.) In line with this slow release policy , the Australian Bureau of Statistics recently announced the first set of findings from the census figures: the unveiling of the mythical "typical" Australian, broken down according to the six states and two territories.

According to , the typical Australian is a married, 38 year old mother of two whose parents were both born in Australia. This latter point is an interesting one, because Australia is a young country, populated overwhelmingly of immigrants and has continued to have large numbers of immigrants until today. One can see this when the data is broken down by state: the typical Australian living in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia has at least one parent who was born overseas. Where the current migrants come from varies by state - the most common immigrant to Australia is from the United Kingdom, but in New South Wales she is from China, in Victoria he is Indian and in Queensland he is from New Zealand (we like the tropical heat up there!)

This typical Australian woman does up to 14 hours of housework a week. She owns two cars and lives in a three bedroom house. In contrast, the typical Australian male is slightly younger (at 37 years old) and does only five hours of housework a week. Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and South Australia are slightly older than the average population, while Victoria and the Northern Territory are slightly younger. Western Australia and the Northern Territory are the only states or territories in which men outnumber women.

I don't know about you, but that is more than enough Australian demographic data to keep me going for now! Luckily, by the time I've digested this lot, the next tranche of results will be about to be announced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. So be prepared! In June we will get some more details of the current state of Australia's population and when we do, we'll those details to you here, at Demography is Destiny! Until then, stay tuned.