By - glenn the census expert
The nation keeps growing, and WA and Victoria lead the way
The Australian dollar may be sinking like a stone, but the population continues to increase, with increased population growth, according to the latest demographic statistics from the ABS. We take a closer look at some interesting...
Understanding local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations
Here at .id, we have just launched our first “community of interest” profile based on the 2011 profile.id platform. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (indigenous) community profile lets councils look in...
What is Australia’s most typical suburb?
Recently, I did some analysis on what would constitute Australia’s most typical town. While there are many ways you could define this, and it was by no means definitive, I came up with 6 parameters and picked...
What is the most typical Australian town?
If you were picking one town to represent Australia, as a nation, which one would it be? Maybe an iconic Australian location, like Uluru, Byron Bay, Katoomba. Somewhere in the outback like Coober Pedy,...
Part 3: Can I compare SEIFA scores over time?
Since the release of the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas, we have been getting a lot of questions about whether users can compare SEIFA scores over time. It’s a very natural thing to want to do – we all want...
Socio-economic indexes – what are they?
On March 28th, the day before Easter, the ABS released the final dataset derived from the 2011 Census, the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas. Some people may know this better as the “Index of Disadvantage”...
Socio-economic index of Advantage/Disadvantage – what are the results?
The ABS has continued its habit of releasing significant results before major public holidays, by releasing the Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) on March 28th, 2013, the day before the Easter break. The...
Are empty nesters moving to inner city apartments? - update
In 2011, I wrote about inner city high density housing, and the idea that empty nesters were moving in there. The article concluded that while there were a few empty nesters downsizing into inner city tower...
Economic profiling just got more sophisticated
The economic data modelling in economy.id, done by National Economics, is a sophisticated micro-simulation model of your local economy, and is updated every year. We have just loaded a new dataset, complete to...
What to do when you think the ABS doesn’t recognise your town’s population? Form a republic!
Well, according to this article and a report on one of those 6:30pm shows on the telly, that’s what the good citizens of Taradale, Victoria decided to do, when the ABS apparently no longer had stats for their...
Top 50 largest cities in Australia by population in 2013
**This blog has been updated: read the latest version of Top 50 largest cities and towns in Australia by population.
Japan – the land of the rising elderly
At .id we like to keep an eye on demographic trends worldwide as well as in Australia. This article caught our eye recently. It says that the number of deaths in Tokyo has now exceeded the number of births, as...
Health Care is now Australia’s largest industry!
The 2011 Census 2nd release revealed an intriguing result. Looking at the broad 19 standard industry divisions, the largest employer of workers in Australia is now the Health Care and Social Assistance...
Where has all our employment gone?
After first release of Census, I wrote a blog about the higher quality of the Census data in 2011, compared to 2006. In general this is true, but unfortunately the second release has revealed an area where the...
What’s your ancestry? New topic on profile.id
Starting with the 2001 Census, the ABS added a new topic to the already extensive list of Census questions relating to cultural diversity. The question was about Ancestry. At .id we have just added this topic...
2016 Census consultation now open!
Under the cover of Melbourne Cup Day, Tuesday 6th November, the Australian Bureau of Statistics quietly released its proposals for the 2016 Census count. With the release of 2011 Census still fresh in...
Second release Census data is out!
Census data in Australia usually comes in two parts – first release, the “easy” questions to process comes out about 10 months after Census date (in this case in June 2012), while second release is a few months...
The man drought - is it real?
Demographic commentator Bernard Salt is credited with coining the phrase “Man drought”, to refer to the phenomenon of there being more females than males in particular age groups. The main age he refers to as a...
Australian 2011 Census - Expanding household size | .id blog
Household size (that is, the average number of people counted in the Census in private dwellings in Australia) has been declining for the last 100 years. In 1911, the average household size for Australia was...
Census 2011 - The geographic distribution of religion
In my final blog on religion in the Census, I will focus on how particular religious affiliations are distributed around Australia. Religion is strongly associated with cultural background, and the breakdown of...
2011 Australian Census – fastest growing religions
As well as people’s beliefs and affiliations, religions are also a measure of the cultural diversity in the nation. The fastest growing religious groups represent communities which have had a lot of migration...
