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ESTIMATED RESIDENT POPULATION

1.15 After the 1981 Census the concept of what constitutes the population of Australia and the states and territories was changed so that it was defined in terms of the number of usual residents - these new estimates (termed the estimated resident population, or ERP) were adopted as the official population series. Prior to this the population had been defined as the number of people actually present at a given time - at the time of the Census this meant the number of people actually counted and therefore included foreign tourists but excluded Australians abroad. Population estimates based on the concept of usual residence were constructed back to 1971.

1.16 Estimates of the resident population are compiled initially at the Census date by firstly adjusting the Census count of residents upwards to compensate for net underenumeration in the Census, and then further adjusting (also upwards) to include an estimate of the number of Australian residents who were temporarily overseas on Census Night.

1.17 A detailed account of the introduction of the ERP series is available in Methods and Procedures in the Compilation of Estimated Resident Population 1981 and in the Construction of the 1971-81 Time Series (cat. no. 3103.0).

1.18 Estimates of the resident population are updated quarterly at the state/territory level and annually at the SLA and LGA levels.

1.19 During the 1980s these statistics were further expanded with the addition of three new annual series (included in the following table). A complete listing of the population estimates series now published by the ABS is given in Table 1.2, with additional unpublished estimates available as indicated in the footnotes.

1.2 Published population estimates series, Geography by availability
Geography and population estimates series		Availability of published estimates(a)
National and state/territory
	Total population	Quarterly
	Age and sex	Annual(b)
	Age, sex and marital status	Five-yearly
	Age, sex and country of birth	Annual(c)
	Age, sex and Indigenous status	Annual experimental estimates(d)
Statistical local area (SLA) and local government area (LGA)
	Total population	Annual
	Age and sex	Annual
(a) Quarterly estimates are available as at 31 March, 30 June, 30 September and 31 December. Annual and five-yearly estimates are available as at 30 June.
(b) Unpublished quarterly estimates also available.
(c) Population estimates by country of birth at the state/territory level are only available for Census years.
(d) Population estimates for the Indigenous population are experimental and are published every five years (after Census results are released).