Australia's overseas born communities in 2020

The ABS has recently released new data on the size of Australia's overseas born communities. At June 2020, there were 7.65 million people in Australia who were born overseas, comprising 29.8% of the population. Where were these people born? What are the fastest growing communities? What is their age structure? How does this relate to the 2021 Census? Read on to find out.

Population growth in Australia remains steady

I don't normally blog about the March and September quarter population data, but 2020 is different. The COVID-19 pandemic has had, and will continue to have, profound impacts on population change. For this reason, the release of the March quarter data by the ABS was highly anticipated due to the progressive restrictions on overseas arrivals from early February 2020. This was followed by a hard border closure in late March. Given that a large proportion of population growth is driven by overseas migration, it was clear that this would have a major impact on our population growth rate. Turns out this data release was a bit of a fizzer - in fact the release of the data pretty much flew under the radar. Read on to find out why.

Most of Australia's migrants are here temporarily

Net overseas migration (NOM) is the primary driver of population growth in Australia. In 2018-19, NOM contributed to 62% of total population growth. The headline numbers catch the attention of the media and the general public, but overseas migrants are a diverse group of people. What are their characteristics? The recent release of the annual migration publication by the ABS sheds some light on these, such as the balance between permanent and temporary migration.

Most of Australia's migrants are here temporarily

The ABS has recently released data from its Australian Census and Temporary Entrants Integrated Dataset (ACTEID) which effectively matches two datasets and provides more insight into the characteristics of migrants.  In an era where there is a lot of conjecture around the scale and composition of Australia's migration program, this type of data release is welcome as it adds to the evidence base.  So what are the key findings?  Read on to find out.