National findings reveal changes in religion, housing, languages

AUSTRALIA’S population is growing fast, is more diverse and less religious.

One in 10 of us now live in apartments.

And for the first time there are more than one million single parent families.

Data from the 2021 Census released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday reveals a fascinating insight into the rapidly changing face of Australia, the makeup of families and the way we live.

It shows the population has more than doubled since 1971, with nearly 25.5 million people (25,422,788) counted on August 10 last year, excluding overseas visitors.

The number of Millennials (those aged 25 to 39) has also increased to nearly match the number of Baby Boomers (aged 55 to 74) with 5.4 million in each age group.

“Every stat tells a story and today we are sharing a glimpse into the stories of almost 25.5 million Australians,” Australian Statistician Dr David Gruen AO said.

“This accurate and valuable data reveals who we are as a nation and how we have changed.”

The findings reveal more than one million new residents arrived in the country between 2017 and 2021.

With these new arrivals, the proportion of Australian residents that are born overseas or have a parent born overseas is now more than half (51.5 per cent).

The largest increase in country of birth, outside Australia, is India with 220,000 (217,963) additional people counted, overtaking China and New Zealand to become the third largest country of birth behind Australia and England.

With the increase in people born overseas, the number of people who used a language other than English at home also increased to more than 5.5 million people (5,663,709), with 850,000 (852,706) of this group not able to speak English well or at all.

Mandarin continues to be the most common language other than English used at home, followed by Arabic.

The number of people identifying as Christian continues to plummet, down to 43.9 per cent from 52.1 per cent in 2016 and from more than 60 per cent in 2011. Almost 40 per cent (38.9 per cent) classed themselves as having “no religion”.

Hinduism has grown by 55.3 per cent to 684,002 people, or 2.7 per cent of the population. Islam has grown to 813,392 people, or 3.2 per cent.