Australia, Australia, This Is You: Here Are the 2016 Census Results

The results of 2016’s #Censusfail (or, as it was ever so briefly known, the Census) have been revealed.

Despite the technical difficulties of Census night (and this is a very generous description of events), 95.1 per cent of Australians apparently completed the survey, and, according to the ABC, an independent panel has declared the data fit to use.

Here are the highlights:

There aren't as many of us as you thought.

The population of Australia was counted as 23,401,892 on Census night, which is a full million people below the current estimate by the ABS website, which as of this writing sits at 24,569,813.

Now, the ABS site says that Australia sees an “overall total population increase of one person every 1 minute and 23 seconds”, so if you do the sums between Census night and today, we should actually be sitting pretty at 23,751,892 (or thereabouts). That means we’re still about 800,000 people short. This is literally the plot of The Leftovers, if The Leftovers was about rounding errors.

(NB: The Census does not directly measure homelessness; however, there are procedures in place to estimate the homeless population during Census night.)

The average Australian is…

A 38-year-old woman who was born in Australia, speaks English, is married, lives in a capital city, earns $662 a week and is named Sharon. Okay, the 'Sharon' bit isn’t true, but the rest is.

However, it’s worth noting that more than one quarter of all Australians are born overseas, with the majority found to be coming from Asia, rather than Europe (a first for us).

Around one in two Australians also have at least one parent born overseas.

The family home is changing too, with a record number of same-sex couples—almost 47,000—putting their hand up to be counted in 2016. The number sat at 26,000 just ten years ago.

Sharon may be the “average Australian”, but Australians, overall, are becoming more and more diverse.

Home ownership is down, duh.

The least surprising find in the 2016 Census is the decline in home ownership, which has sunk from 68.6 per cent in 1991 to 65.6 per cent in 2016. Fewer people have fully paid off their mortgage too; in 1991, 40 per cent owned their home outright, and in 2016, it’s 31 per cent.

More are also renting, up from 29.6 per cent in 2011 to 31 per cent in 2016.

We're less religious than ever.

The Census data reveals Australians are losing their faith, with one third of Australians saying they have no religion. Christians make up a little more than 50 per cent of the current population, but in 1966, that number was in the high 90s.

On the other hand, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam have increased greatly since 1991, by 533 per cent, 200 per cent and 160 per cent, respectively.

Australia’s old, but we’re more educated than ever.

It’s not breaking news to say we have an ageing population, but the latest data shows one in six Australians are over the age of 65. The median age is now 38, up from 37 just six years ago.

At least it’s not all bad news for the young’uns. More than half of the population is educated to Year 12 level or above, which is an improvement on older generations, the majority of whom were only educated up to Year 10, or lower.

BTW, Melbourne is on track to soon surpass Sydney in population.

This is basically just to stir the pot.

Photo: iStock