HOUSEHOLD AND FAMILY COMPOSITION

KEY FINDINGS

In the 2011 Census:

• 6% of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households were multiple family households up from 5% in 2006
• one-parent families with dependent children accounted for 29% of all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander one family households, down from 30% in 2006
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households had an average of 3.3 people per household, the same as in 2006.

HOUSEHOLD COMPOSITION

In the 2011 Census, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households were more likely than other households to be family households (81% compared with 71%) and less likely to be lone person households (14% compared with 25%). Among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households, 6% were multiple family households, compared with 2% of other households.



ONE FAMILY HOUSEHOLDS

Of all one family households, more than one-third (35%) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households were couples with dependent children, similar to the proportion of other households (37%). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander one family households were more than three times as likely as other one family households to be one-parent families with dependent children (29% compared with 9%) and were less likely to be families without dependent children (36% compared with 54%).




FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD SIZE

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households had an average of 3.3 people per household in 2011, compared with an average of 2.6 people for other households. One factor contributing to this difference is the higher number of dependent children in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander households when compared with other households. Of all families with children, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families were less likely than other families to have one or two dependent children (59% compared with 62%) and more than twice as likely to have four or more dependent children (10% compared with 4%).