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Australia's becoming more diverse: Census 2021

Australian Statistician Dr David Gruen addresses attendees during the ABS 2021 Census Data Release, Canberra, Tuesday, June 28, 2022. (AAP Image/Bianca De Marchi) NO ARCHIVING

Australian Statistician Dr David Gruen addresses attendees during the ABS 2021 Census Data Release. Source: AAP

2021's Census results have been released, and it's showing some big changes in Australia's population. From cultural background to religion, Australia is becoming increasingly diverse and its population has doubled in size over the last 50 years to 25.5 million.


The population has continued to grow rapidly, with more than 1 million new residents arriving in Australia over the last five years, the vast majority coming before the borders closed in 2020 due to the global COVID pandemic.

The largest increase in the country of birth outside Australia was India, which is now also the third largest country of birth overall, after Australia and England, and followed by China and New Zealand.

Mandarin continues to be the most widely spoken language at home other than English, but Punjabi had the biggest increase in speakers since 2016.

The proportion of generations has also swung towards Millennials - aged between 25 and 39 - who are now almost on par with the Baby Boomers, aged between 55 and 74.

The 2021 Census marks 50 years since Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were first counted in the survey.

This time the number of respondents who identified as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander increased by 25.2 per cent from 2016, to more than 810,000 people or 3.2 per cent of the population.

 

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