Today the Australian Bureau of Statistics have released the data from last year’s census. Although the process was marred by technical issues, they believe the more than 95% of households completed the national survey, making it the largest ever at 68.9 Million pieces of data. ABS have confirmed the data is valid as compared against previous Census and international data quality standards.
For data nerds, the Census data is heaven, enabling us to understand Australia and the people who live here, better than ever before. Australia’s official population is now 24.4 Million people (50.7% female, 49.3% male). Australians are living longer with 1 in 6 over the age of 65. Sydney is still the largest city, but Melbourne continues to catch up.
The number of Australians who don’t subscribe to a religion has grown from 0.8% in 1966 to 12.9% in 1991 and is now at a massive 30.1%, hopefully speaking to an increasing understanding of science by our nation.
The average household, houses 2.6 people. Despite our housing crisis in the cities, where affordability is worse than ever, this figure actually fell from 2.8 per household in 1991.
This Census makes history with the a majority of Australians completing the Census online. In 2016, over 63% of people completed the Census online and ABS they will continue to push a digital strategy in the future as it accounts for a more than $100,000 saving to the tax payer.
There’s so much data in this release its impossible to touch on it all here, so do yourself a favour and head over to http://abs.gov.au/census
