Live: The census has painted a picture of the average Australian, revealed a ‘generational shift’ across the country

Figures out today from the ABS put the tourist capital’s rent at $85 more than Queensland’s median weekly rent and $75 more than the national median.

They also show more than 40 per cent of people renting on the Gold Coast are considered to be suffering from rental stress, meaning 30 per cent or more of their weekly income is being paid in rent.

More people are living on the Gold Coast too, according to the latest figures.

You can continue reading this story by Kimberley Bernard below to get a snapshot of how the Glitter Strip has changed in five years.

WA’s population has bucked the national trend, with a falling share of millennials compared to baby boomers.

And even though millennials still make up a greater proportion of the state than the older cohort, the state’s average age is increasing.

You can read more on this story from Keane Bourke below.

For the first time, the Census has recorded more than 1 million one-parent families, and 80 per cent of those parents were female.

The data also showed:

• 46 per cent of Australians over the age of 15 were in a registered marriage;
• 11 per cent were in a de facto marriage;
• 42 per cent were not married;
• 3 per cent were separated;
• 9 per cent were divorced;
• 5 per cent were widowed.

As we said before, the proportion of people who own their own home outright has dropped to 30 per cent, down from 40 per cent in 1996.

In the same time period, households with a mortgage increased from 26 to 35 per cent.

But one figure that has come out of the data caught the eye of demographer Dr Liz Allen from the Australian National University is the number of vacant homes in Australia.

“Out of all of the home ownership and the living metrics that we’re seeing in this census, one stands out the most to me,” she told AM.

“And that is the fact that we have one million vacant homes across this country.

“Given what we know about housing affordability and homelessness, that is a terrible reflection on policy.”

When Census night 2021 rolled around, Pirate Priestess Angela Carter and her husband Captain Colin ‘Cupcakes’ Carter followed an instruction from their leader and selected the ‘No religion’ option where the nationwide survey asked respondents about their religious affiliations.

Yet, the Carters were ministers and owners at the only recognised church of their faith in Australia.

The couple are among a growing number of Australians who consider themselves Pastafarians, or members of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Their faith was seen by some as a satire mocking other religions, but members of the largely online community said it espoused values of respect and common decency.

You can continue reading this story by Matt Neal below.

 The top responses on ancestry in 2021 were English and Australian.

Other top responses include Irish, Scottish and Chinese, all of which increased since 2016.

Now looking at country of birth, and other than Australia the top response is England. That’s followed by India, China, New Zealand and Philippines.

For the first time, fewer than half of Australians identified as Christian, though Christianity remained the nation’s most common religion followed by Islam.

Here’s another look at the statistics around religion in the census.

There is now 38.9 per cent of the Australian population who have reported no religious affiliation in the census.

This has grown from 30.1 per cent in 2016.

Christianity remains the most common religion with 43.9 per cent of the population identifying as Christian, a decrease from 52.1 per cent in the 2016 Census.

The top 5 religions outside of Christianity are Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Judaism.

There’s also been an uptick in people answering the religion question, which is voluntary, in the census.

It went from 91 per cent in 2016 to 93 per cent in 2021.

As we mentioned earlier, the 2021 Census results show more than 8 million people reported having a long-term health condition.

Mental health was the most reported long-term health condition, at 2.2 million.

People aged 25-29 were the group with the highest reporting of mental health conditions.

From demographic shifts to migration, religion and the impacts of the pandemic, here’s what ABC statisticians David Gruen and Teresa Dickinson say are the key results of the census.

  This chart shows the change to state and territory populations from March 2017 to December 2021.

Victoria and NSW saw a reduction to their population during 2020, likely as a result of the pandemic.

Other states such as Queensland, WA and SA saw less growth to their populations.

Today’s census data has focused heavily on the millennial generation catching up to the baby boomers, but but what about the generation in between?

Generation X, which the ABS classifies as people aged between 40 and 54, makes up the third biggest population in Australia at 19.3 per cent.

Here’s a look at all of the populations by generation:

• Baby boomers (55-74 years) — 21.5 per cent
• Millennials (25-39 years) — 21.5 per cent
• Generation X (40-54 years) — 19.3 per cent
• Generation Z (10-24 years) — 18.2 per cent
• Generation Aplha (0-9 years) — 12.0 per cent
• Interwar (75 years and over) — 7.5 per cent

The 2021 Census counted 25,422,788 people in Australia, an increase of 8.6 per cent since the 2016 Census.

Some key stats:

• Australia’s population was 25,766,605 at 31 December, 2021
• The quarterly growth was 63,400 people (0.2%)
• The annual growth was 128,000 people (0.5%)
• Annual natural increase was 138,500 and net overseas migration was -3,600.

 Hi Amy, the median age is 38 and is slightly higher for women.

Data from the census shows the response rate increased from 95.1 per cent in 2016 to 96.1 per cent.

The percentage of households completing the census online increased to nearly four out of five.

Lockdowns meant more families and households were together on census night.

Statistician Teresa Dickinson has outlined a few things she thought were “unusual” in this Census.

“I thought it was unusual that there is now half a million of us living in high-rise flats, higher than nine storeys. That wasn’t something I expected to see,” she said.

“While I knew that we are a nation of drivers, the very high proportion of households that have at least one motor vehicle was a surprise to me too, and the fact that the number of Jedi have gone down, that was a surprise too.

  Today marks the 50th anniversary of the 1971 Census, which was the first census to include the results of Indigenous Australians.

There was a 25 per cent increase in people identifying as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander in this census.

David Gruen says the proportion of people who are over 65 who are Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander has gone up 50 per cent.

“There is a big increase in older people who are identifying as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and I think it will repay a lot of research to actually find out about why it is that more people are feeling comfortable about identifying as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander,” Dr Gruen said.

 Teresa Dickinson has described an average Australian, here’s what that looks like:

• A female
• aged 30-39 years 
• living in a coupled family with children
• living in the greater capital city area 
• An average weekly family income of $3,000 or more.

“That is our average Australian,” she said.

The panel was asked if the census results underestimate gender diversity because questions only asked if a person was a male, female or non-binary with no other options.

Dr Gruen said the ABS was instructed by the government to ask a question on sex but not on gender or sexual orientation.

“The question that was asked was about a person’s sex and the options were male, female and non-binary sex,” he said.

“There will be an opportunity to revisit that for the 2026 census and the ABS will engage in a public consultation process starting later this year to ask the community if there are other questions that people think that we should be asking.”

“There is no question that the 2021 census did not collect information on gender identity and so it can’t be used to infer information on gender identity.

“We are going to go to some trouble to carefully analyse the results of the sex question and put out an analytical article in a couple of months which will go into detail about how those answers were — so people not only answered the question but also had an opportunity to write comments and we will be providing detail on that in a detailed article.

“The answer to your question is the census did not collect information on gender identity and therefore it does not collect — it can’t give you an estimate of the trans population.”

Teresa Dickinson says Australia is “undergoing a generational shift.”

The census revealed the millennial generation has caught up to baby boomers in becoming the largest generation group in Australia.

“While Australia is an ageing country, the 2021 census has seen the number of millennials, those born from 1981-1996 catch up to the baby boomers,” she said.

“The baby boomers and millennials each have over 5.4 million people, the number of millennials is increasing through migration, while the number of baby boomers is decreasing.”