Record number of foreign-born residents in Oz

Australia’s overseas-born population is at its highest level since the gold rush in the 19th century.

New figures released by the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show that 6.6 million people currently residing in Australia were born overseas,

This equates to roughly 28 per cent of the county’s population having been born outside of Australia – the highest percentage of foreign-born residents for 120 years.

Immigration has been responsible for much of this growth in recent years. “Overseas migration has been a large contributor to the total Australian population growth for several years – it has consistently been the main driver since 2005-06, contributing more than 50 per cent of population growth in Australia,” explained Denise Carlton from the ABS.

The largest nationality groups who have moved to Australia were people born in the United Kingdom, with a total of over 1.2 million residents of Australia (around 5.2 per cent of the entire population) born there. The next most common birth place was New Zealand (with just over 600,000 making up 2.6 per cent of Australia’s population), followed by China (around 450,000 – 1.9 per cent) and then India (just under 400,000 1.7 per cent).