4725.0 - Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Wellbeing: A focus on children and youth, Apr 2011  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 23/05/2012  Reissue
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Contents >> A Population Overview


A POPULATION OVERVIEW: ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDER CHILDREN AND YOUTH

This article is part of a comprehensive series released as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Wellbeing: A focus on children and youth.


Note: In this section 'children' refers to people aged 0–14 years. The terms 'youth' and 'young people' refer to people aged 15–24 years. Data presented are from the ABS Experimental Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, June 2006 (cat. no. 3238.0.55.001), Births, Australia, 2009 (cat. no. 3301.0) and Deaths, Australia, 2009 (cat. no. 3302.0).

KEY MESSAGES

At 30 June 2006:
  • there were an estimated 517,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia (2.5% of the total Australian population)
  • there were an estimated 294,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people in Australia (4.2% of all Australian children and young people)
  • children and youth comprised more than half (57%) of the total Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population
  • consistent with the distribution of the total Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population:
      • almost one-third of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youth (32%) lived in major cities, 44% lived in regional Australia and almost one-quarter (24%) lived in remote Australia
      • New South Wales had the highest number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and young people (87,400) of all the states and territories.
In 2009:
  • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander females in the 20–24 year age group had the highest rate of births (or fertility rate) out of all age groups (152 births per 1,000 females)
  • the teenage fertility rate of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander females was six times the non-Indigenous teenage fertility rate (79 births per 1,000 females compared with 13 births per 1,000 females)
  • between 2005 and 2009, the number of deaths per 100,000 people in the 15–24 year age group was almost three times as high for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander youth as it was for non-Indigenous youth (115 deaths per 100,000 compared with 41 deaths per 100,000).

This article provides an overview of the demographic characteristics of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and youth. Data presented are drawn from a range of sources and provide context for the other articles in this series which focus on aspects of wellbeing.

The topics covered in this article include:

Note: This article uses experimental estimates of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population based on the 2006 Census. These provide the most recent estimates available to compare the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous populations. For more information about the experimental estimates based on the 2006 Census, refer to ABS Experimental Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, June 2006 (cat. no. 3238.0.55.001).




This section contains the following subsection :
      Population size and age structure
      Where children and young people live
      Fertility and mortality
      Other resources about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population

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