News
Immigration fuels population growth
The all-time high levels of immigration experienced in Australia over the past few years is likely to contribute to the country's population reaching the 22 million mark by the end of this year - 40 years faster than had been expected just 11 years ago.
In 1998, demographers predicted that Australia's population would have reached between 23.5 million and 26.4 million by 2051. However, according to recent data from McCrindle Research, if Australia's population carries on growing at its current level, there will be closer to 44 million people living in Oz by that year.
The McGrindle data revealed that an all-time high of 253,415 immigrants - including refugees, New Zealand citizens and those already onshore - became permanent residents of Australia in the 2008 calendar year. This, combined with the country's highest ever number of births in a year (296,610) and the lowest ever death rate (6.03 per 1,000 people), contributed to a record population increase of 406,083 in the year to 31 December 2008. A similar increase in 2009, which is widely anticipated, would see the population reach 22 million by Christmas and would mean that Australia has grown by one million people in just over two years.
"Traditionally the strongest contributor of Australia's population growth has been natural increase rather than net migration," said Mark McCrindle, the social demographer responsible for the latest research. "However for the last five years the national population has been boosted more by migration than natural increase. This remained the case this year, with natural causes contributing to one-third of the country's net growth and migration two-thirds.
Even the government's decision to reduce the 2009/10 skilled migration programme is unlikely to have an impact on Australia's rapidly increasing population, as the overall offshore migration programme's intake target of 168,700 still represents the second-largest programme since the days of the Ten Pound Poms.
As far as individual states go, Western Australia's population grew by 3.09 per cent in 2008 - the highest in Australia, while Tasmania experienced the smallest population growth at 0.99 per cent.
15 September 2009