The overseas-born population in Australia has increased to nearly 30% of the nation’s total population, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
ABS head of migration statistics Jenny Dobak says data as of 30 June 2022 shows 7.7 million Australian residents were born overseas.
The figure represents 29.5% of Australia’s estimated population of 26 million people and is an increase of more than two per cent since 2021.
The data shows Western Australia had the highest proportion born overseas at 34% while Tasmania had the lowest at 16%.
More Aussies born in India, China and Nepal
England, India, China and New Zealand were the most represented countries for Australia’s overseas born, in that order.
Nearly a million people, 961,000, were recorded as having been born in England, making it the largest overseas-born cohort in Australia.
But ten years ago there were more than a million, showing the English dominance in Australian overseas-born ancestry has declined.
The fastest-growing migrant group in the past decade is people born in India, with 754,000 people recorded in that group in the latest data.
That’s nearly 398,000 more than were recorded in the cohort in 2012, the ABS says.
The number of people born in China and in Nepal make up the second and third fastest-growing cohorts for overseas-born Australians.
The ABS says the migrant group in Australia with the oldest median age is from Italy at 73 years, and the group with the youngest median age is from Nepal, at 29 years.
Wow, this is really interesting. I wonder what that percentage looks like locally? Is this a generational first? (Apart from the original colonisation/invasion process and the point in time when British convicts etc would have outnumbered Indigenous peoples). I’m a Gen Xer and my son is a millenial, I guess. Is this the first time the percentage of overseas-born Australians has reached this level? What are the ramifications, socially etc, I wonder? I’ve certainly noticed a lot more British accents on ABC radio, for instance, in the last few years. I often reflect on the ramifications of internal migration – the fact that so many people have moved to this region, for instance, in my lifetime, and the changes they’ve brought with them. My family moved up here in one of the earlier treechange waves in the early 80s when I was in early primary school, while my son is a 4th gen Lismore Shire resident via his dad’s side. We are starting to feel like a rarity, socially! One of the obvious ramifications is the time it takes to really get to know a place intimately, and the poor decisions you can make in terms of gardening choices when you’re not intimate or familiar with the land here. My mum made a lot of weed-introducing mistakes in her early years!! Displacement is another obvious issue. I have never been able to afford to buy property in the region, as a single mother on low income, yet this is my place of attachment. Human community has increasingly changed, shifted and yes, I’ve lost friends who’ve been displaced. But the land itself is my community, my family. If this experience is so strong for me after nearly 50 years, think about how it is for the multi-generational, and even deeper, the peoples of the Bundjalung nation whose traditional homelands these have been since time immemorial. Yet what percentage of the population do they make up? Sigh. Sometimes it all feels like it’s all happening way too fast these days. Most days.
And our Government’s opinion is that mega-immigration isn’t a contributing factor to the housing problem or our environment crisis … go figure…
Enjoy the shortages everyone.