| January 16, 2004 | Embargoed 11:30am (AEST) | 2004 |
Eight Out Of Ten Overseas Born Australians Live In Capital Cities
Overseas born Australians were more urbanised than Australia's total population, with 81% living in capital cities, according to a report released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The highest concentrations of overseas born Australians were found in Greater Dandenong City (Statistical Sub-Division, or SSD) in Melbourne where over half (54%) the population was born overseas, and in Fairfield-Liverpool (SSD) in Sydney where almost half the population (49%) was born overseas.
The report used results from the 2001 Census of Population and Housing to describe the major differences in the socio-demographic characteristics of people living in different parts of Australia.
Some of the main findings in the report were:
- A higher proportion of people living in mainly urban regions than in mixed urban/rural regions spoke a language other than English at home, due to higher proportions of people born overseas living in these areas. The exceptions were some remote regions with high proportions of Indigenous persons. For example, in the Balance of the Northern Territory (Statistical Division, or SD), which excludes Darwin, 51% of the population were Indigenous, and 72% of these people spoke an Indigenous language at home.
- The centre of Sydney had the highest population density of the 118 regions presented in the report, with more than 4,000 people per square kilometre in the Eastern Suburbs (SSD) region.
- Working long hours (50 hours or more per week) was more common in the mixed urban/rural regions (22% of employed people aged 15 years and over), compared with mainly urban regions (18%).
- Some of the oldest populations in Australia were found in coastal areas popular with retirees, such as Richmond-Tweed (SD) in northern NSW and the Sunshine Coast (SSD) in Queensland. Nearly one in five people living in these regions were aged 65 years and over, compared to one in eight in Australia as a whole.
- Younger couples without children made up a higher proportion of families in inner city areas than in other regions. In particular, they made up between 17% and 20% of all families in the inner city areas of Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney.
- The highest rates of computer use at home were recorded in capital city areas such as the Western Inner Brisbane Statistical Region Sector (SRS), Central Northern Sydney (SSD), and Tuggeranong (SSD) in Canberra, where six out of ten people had used a computer at home in the week prior to the 2001 Census.
- The lowest rates of Internet use at home occurred in the remote areas of the Kimberley (SD) region (14% of people), the Balance of the Northern Territory (SD) (16%), and South West and Central West Queensland (16%).
Further information is in Census of Population and Housing: Australia in Profile - A Regional Analysis (cat. no. 2032.0).
Media Note: The report was based on ABS geographical areas called Statistical Divisions (SDs). However, to give more evenly sized regions, SDs in populous areas have generally been disaggregated to Statistical Subdivisions (SSDs) or Statistical Region Sectors (SRSs).
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