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A major new social report, Australia in Profile: a Regional Analysis,released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, uses results from the 1996 Census of Population and Housing to describe some of the major differences in the characteristics and well-being of people living in different parts of Australia.

This report capitalises on the strength of the Census which is to provide detailed information for small geographic areas. The report also compares and contrasts the circumstances of people living in urban and rural areas, and identifies regions with the highest or lowest proportions of people with particular characteristics.

Australia in Profile: a Regional Analysis is divided into two main parts. The first consists of seven chapters discussing topics of social interest and concern in a range of areas including, cultural diversity, living arrangements, and employment and unemployment.

The second part of the report consists of a detailed social indicator table which presents a selection of key indicators for Statistical Local Areas - towns, shires and municipalities - across Australia. At a glance regions can be compared at the national, state and local levels.

Some of the main findings in the report are:

• Rural regions, such as the Far West of New South Wales, South Australia's Yorke and Lower North and Wimmera in Victoria, had some of the highest levels of outright home ownership.
• Some regions in Sydney and Melbourne were ranked among the most advantaged in Australia (such as Ku-ring-gai, Mosman and Woollahra in Sydney, and Boroondara-Camberwell South and Bayside-Brighton in Melbourne), while others were among the most disadvantaged regions (Maribyrnong and Brimbank-Sunshine in Melbourne, and Fairfield in Sydney).
• The remote Kimberley region of Western Australia had the highest proportion of one-parent families with dependent children (19%).
• In the outer Adelaide region of Victor Harbour, 30% of the population was aged 65 years or more, compared to 16% in neighbouring Yankalilla, and 14% in South Australia as a whole.
• The Pilbara region in Western Australia had the highest proportion of people with vocational qualifications (20%), and, at 78%, the highest level of labour force participation.
• Ten per cent of people in Darwin were of Indigenous origin, compared to 28% of the Northern Territory as a whole.
• At $570 per week, household income per capita in Sydney's Hunter's Hill was well above the national level of $311.
• The cities of Sydney and Melbourne had the highest proportions of people born in non-main English-speaking countries (23% and 22% respectively).
• Between 1991 and 1996, the region with the fastest growing population in Australia was Casey-Berwick in south-east outer Melbourne.