$Unique_ID{COW00198} $Pretitle{369} $Title{Australia Chapter 3C. Population} $Subtitle{} $Author{Donald P. Whitaker} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{percent population australia immigrants labor immigration years increase proportion women} $Date{1974} $Log{Figure 7.*0019801.scf Table 3.*0019801.tab Table 4.*0019802.tab Table 5.*0019803.tab Table 6.*0019804.tab } Country: Australia Book: Australia, A Country Study Author: Donald P. Whitaker Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1974 Chapter 3C. Population According to the census taken in June 1971, the total population was 12,755,638; it was estimated to have increased to over 13.1 million by mid-1973. With four persons to a square mile in the early 1970s, Australia was the least populated of the world's large countries. The 1971 census indicated an average annual growth rate of 1.93 percent over the preceding ten years, continuing a gradual decline from a high of 2.54 percent during the immediate post-World War II years. The projected population for the year 2000 was approximately 21 million. The 1971 figure included 106,288 people who considered themselves Aboriginals; this was the first time that Aboriginals were counted in the official national census. Although special counts had been made periodically-the most thorough in 1966-Aboriginals had previously been excluded from national census figures under Section 127 of the constitution, and their numbers were therefore not reflected in such arrangements as fiscal and electoral provisions. This section of the constitution was repealed in 1967. The 1971 census also included 9,663 Torres Strait Islanders. Population Structure The population was fairly young-the group under the age of twenty constituted 37.5 percent of the population-reflecting the results of the higher growth rates of the post-World War II baby boom and the youthful age of the majority of the immigrants. In general, however, the population profile was that of a developed country. About 28.8 percent of the total were in the age-group under fifteen years, 62.9 percent were fifteen to sixty-four years of age, and 8.3 percent were sixty-five years and over. The twenty- to thirty-nine-year group and the forty- to sixty-four-year group were about equal in number (28 percent and 26.2 percent, respectively). The average age of the population continued the gradual increase apparent since federation in 1911; the proportion of the population over forty grew while that under forty decreased (see fig. 7). [See Figure 7.: Australian Population Pyramids, 1954 and 1971 Source: Adapted from United Nations Demographic Yearbook, New York, 1970, pp. 378-379; and Official Year Book of the Commonwealth of Australia, 1972 (No. 58), Canberra, 1972, p. 1056.] Relatively equal sex distribution was achieved for the first time in 1947 and was maintained in spite of the rapid increase in immigration after World War II. This was a marked change from a previously masculine, immigrant, and pioneering society. The 1971 ratio of 101.1 males to 100 females compared with that of 110.5 males to 100 females at the beginning of the twentieth century; even higher rates existed in the nineteenth century (see ch. 2). This change reflected both the decline in the proportion of immigrants in the total population and the increase in female immigrants. Higher ratios of males to females still prevail, however, in the overseas-born population and in the Northern Territory and Western Australia, both considered frontier areas. Immigration is one of the most important aspects of Australia's demography. Immigrants were first outnumbered by native-born Australians only in 1870. The proportion of the population born outside Australia fell gradually after that. In 1901 the overseas-born constituted 23 percent of the total population and in 1947, 10 percent. In 1971, however, after more than two decades of substantial immigration, the proportion had risen to almost 20 percent. The 1971 census listed 2,520,148 people born outside Australia; almost three-fourths of the overseas-born population reported that they had lived in Australia for five years or longer. By the early 1970s the Aboriginal population, including an estimated 40,000 full bloods, was increasing at a slightly higher rate than the rest of the population. It is generally agreed that Aboriginals numbered some 300,000 at the time Europeans arrived on the continent. After a century of disease, warfare, and deprivation that accompanied European settlement, their numbers were reduced to roughly 40,000 at the beginning of the twentieth century, and it was then widely assumed that they would simply die out. In 1971 approximately 90 percent of the Aboriginal population was distributed in roughly commensurate numbers among Queensland, Western Australia, New South Wales, and the Northern Territory, where they made up over one-quarter of the territorial population. The geographical distribution of the population is extremely uneven, a reflection of environmental influences. About 80 percent of the continent is very thinly populated, having an average of less than one person per square mile. An arc of moderate density extends along the eastern and southeastern seaboard from southern Queensland to eastern South Australia; the principal concentration is between Newcastle, 100 miles north of Sydney, and Geelong, to the west of Melbourne. Inland from this arc, moderate densities are also found in several east coast valleys in Queensland, in the southeast, and in the southwest coastal area of Western Australia. Victoria had the highest density of any state, an average of forty persons per square mile; Tasmania and New South Wales had an average of about fifteen; and South Australia and Queensland averaged about three. Western Australia averaged one person per square mile, and the Northern Territory was so thinly peopled that it had less than one person per six square miles. In 1971 the Australian Capital Territory had an average of 153 persons per square mile, a reflection of its specialized role as the site of the federal capital (see table 3). [See Table 3.: Australia, State and Continental Territorial Area and Population, 1971] The 1971 census showed that approximately 85.6 percent of the population lived in urban centers; roughly 14.3 percent was rural. The proportion varied somewhat from state to state, but only Queensland (20.4 percent), Tasmania (26.5 percent), and the Northern Territory (35.2 percent) had substantially higher rural percentages. The degree of urbanization, moreover, increased between 1961 and 1971. The proportion of the population living in cities of 500,000 or more increased from 49.7 percent to 57.9 percent, and the number of such cities grew from four to five. The proportion of the population in smaller cities and towns remained stable at around 25 percent from 1954 to 1971. Although the number of small towns with populations below 10,000 increased slightly during the decade up to 1971, they tended to lose most of their natural increase to larger towns of between 15,000 and 20,000 and to a handful of small cities of between 50,000 and 75,000. The pattern of population concentration in large cities may be somewhat altered through efforts at state and federal levels to build up other regional urban centers. With few interior resources requiring large labor reserves for their development, Australia has experienced internal migration primarily in the form of a gradual population movement from rural to urban areas. Between 1961 and 1971 the rural population declined in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the total population, losing all of its natural increase. This drift and the related movement out of agricultural occupations was not as pronounced as that in other developed countries. Nevertheless, the trend showed every sign of continuing. Population Dynamics Census counts have been taken with some regularity since 1881, when a total population of 2.25 million was recorded. In the thirty years between 1881 and 1911 the population doubled, and it doubled again, although at a slower rate, between 1911 and 1954 (see table 4). After World War II there was a general acceptance of the desirability of rapid population growth, which stemmed in part from a feeling of the country's vulnerability (experienced during World War II) and the need to fill up Australia's open spaces. These factors, together with the postwar labor shortage, erased the depression-born resistance to immigration associated with fears of job competition and cheap labor. The notion of "populate or perish" seized the popular imagination, and a renewed, vigorous campaign to encourage immigration became official policy. In the early 1970s after two decades of rapid population growth, the assumptions underlying postwar immigration and population policies were being reexamined. Fluctuations in the growth rate were attributable in large measure to changes in net immigration as well as to changes in the rate of natural increase. During the 1960s net immigration accounted for an average of 45 percent of the population increase; in the year ending September 1972, however, this percentage fell to 17 percent with a noticeable reduction in immigrant quotas. [See Table 4.: Australia, Population Growth, Selected Years, 1881-1971] The principal sources of the overseas-born population were the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, followed by Italy, Greece, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), the Netherlands, Malta, and Poland. The nationality of immigrants to Australia changed noticeably after World War II. During the 1950s and 1960s a shift in favor of immigrants from continental Europe as compared to those from the British Isles was intensified. Initially, most non-British immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe as a consequence of official support for war refugee settlement (see ch. 5; ch. 2). For some years these immigrants were known as New Australians, but by the late 1960s the term was no longer officially endorsed, having acquired slightly pejorative overtones in popular usage. In 1971 approximately two-thirds of arriving immigrants headed for New South Wales and Victoria. Over half were single and male. Various integration services financed by federal and state governments as well as private agencies assisted the immigrants in adapting to Australian life. About 1,000 ethnic organizations played an important part in the settlement of immigrants; many Italians and Greeks, for example, arrived through a process of chain immigration that linked both urban and rural communities in Australia to villages in southern Italy or islands in Greece. Despite the significant changes in immigration patterns, the United Kingdom remained the single major source of new immigrants, and British subjects made up roughly half of the permanent overseas arrivals. Immigration was furthered by various so-called assisted passage agreements between Australia and other countries and by Australian public assistance to selected and nominated immigrants and refugees. The people involved in such programs accounted for roughly half of the permanent immigrants into Australia between 1946 and 1971. The agreement with Great Britain, the most important source of immigrants, was allowed to lapse in 1972, although assistance continued. With fairly minor variations, citizenship could be acquired by British subjects and citizens of other Commonwealth of Nations countries through notification or registration and, after five years of residence (in some cases reduced to three years), by aliens through naturalization. With few exceptions, immigration and census figures were not published in a form that indicated race, so it was difficult to determine the racial characteristics of immigrants. One estimate in 1970 placed the number of nonwhites entering Australia at roughly 2,000 a year. Though small, this figure represented a notable change from the White Australia Policy that had characterized the country into the 1960s. By the mid-1960s, however, the White Australia Policy had been expunged from both official policy and political party platforms (see ch. 2). Despite a brief reassertion of old fears triggered by evidence of racial violence and unrest in the United States and Great Britain in the 1960s, overt popular expressions of prejudice had subsided. This was partly because of success in accommodating large numbers of Asian students in Australian schools and universities and partly because of a general acceptance of pluralism and integration rather than assimilation as the mode of accommodating non-British immigrants in Australian society. These changes eased the entry of non-Europeans and of non-British and non-European wives and children of settlers. Immigration policy continued to emphasize a predominantly homogeneous population, with an explicit awareness of the problems that could emerge from the creation of large ethnic minorities. Applications from non-Europeans have been subject to closer scrutiny regarding qualifications. Nevertheless, although it remained a matter of some controversy in the early 1970s and although there were continued indications of prejudice against racial and nationality groups, the issue of non-European immigration was regarded as simply one part of the larger question of immigration and population policy in the mid-1970s. In this regard, the principal problem was less the source of immigrants and more their qualifications and potential economic contributions. Because of the drop in immigration from the United Kingdom and the competition for labor from Western European countries, it was widely assumed that Australia would continue to draw on non-European sources for immigrants. Birthrates have generally declined since 1880. A reversal occurred during and immediately following World War II; a slight upward trend was also noticeable after 1966, when the larger number of women from the post-World War II baby boom reached maturity. In the 1965-67 period the crude birthrate was 19.5 per 1,000, rising annually thereafter to 21.7 per 1,000 in 1971. Birthrates (excluding Aboriginals) were noticeably higher in the Northern Territory. Age-specific birthrates showed a marked increase in the fertility of younger women since 1946, mainly a result of earlier marriage, but fertility in the thirty- and forty-year age-groups declined. In view of the generally low rate of natural increase and a prevailing belief that the country's development can accommodate a larger population, there was little of the pressure toward population control apparent in Australia's Asian neighbors. Government policies have tended to encourage higher birthrates by giving various allowances to families. In addition to maternity allowances, parents who were permanent residents or likely to be were eligible for child endowment, payments based on weekly rates that climbed steeply to the third child and increased more gradually for subsequent children. As in other industrialized countries, however, economic, technological, and attitudinal changes ensured widespread use of contraceptive methods and devices and encouraged overwhelming approval for family planning (see ch. 4). Death rates showed a progressive decline from the 1880s to the early 1930s, when a slight increase occurred. Since the mid-1950s the crude death rate has been between about 8.7 and 9.2 per 1,000. MANPOWER The working-age population (persons fifteen years of age and older) was estimated in a labor survey conducted in May 1972 at over 9.2 million, and the labor force at close to 5.6 million, or three-fifths of all potential workers. The economic development of the country since 1947 has been reflected in the rapid growth of the labor force. Much of this was attributable to immigration, but part was because of an increase in the number of working women, whose proportion in the labor force has grown steadily during the twentieth century. Women in the early 1970s, however, had lower job status than men, held fewer positions of responsibility, and received generally lower wages (see ch. 13; ch. 5). Participation of women in the labor force climbed from 20.5 percent in 1901 to 38.6 percent in 1972. An estimated 82.5 percent of men fifteen years of age and older participated in the labor force according to the 1972 survey, and virtually all men between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-four did so. The highest female rate, 60 percent, occurred between the ages of twenty and twenty-four. The pattern of female employment indicated generally higher participation rates for unmarried women and a tendency for married women to return to work between the ages of thirty-five and forty-four-apparently after the children were grown. Well over half the working women were married, and it was expected that their number would grow with the planned expansion of child care centers. Four out of five people worked for wages. According to preliminary data from the 1971 census, only 7.5 percent of the active labor force worked in agriculture, forestry, fishing, and related industries (see table 5). This represented a decline of over 50 percent since 1947. In June 1972 one of every five people employed was a civilian public servant. Some 59 percent of public employees worked for state governments, and another 10 percent were employed by local governments. The federal government and quasi-governmental bodies employed about 31 percent of individuals in public service. Until 1966 women were excluded from permanent employment in the Commonwealth Public Service, as well as in most state governments, but by mid-1972 approximately one-quarter of all civilian public employees were women. About 44 percent of all male workers in the active labor force in May 1972 were estimated to be engaged as craftsmen, production-process workers, or laborers. The second largest group (under 11 percent) was engaged in farming, forestry, fishing, or related activities. Other male workers were comparatively evenly distributed among the remaining principal occupational categories (see table 6). The greatest occupational grouping of women workers was in the clerical field; this group made up about one-third of all women employees. As expected, the proportion of individuals engaged in agricultural and related pursuits declined, dropping from 11.1 percent of the total active labor force in 1961 to 8.2 percent in 1972. The number of clerical workers increased during the same period, from 13 percent of the active labor force to 16.1 percent. A significant increase also took place in professional, technical, and related workers, from 8.4 percent in 1961 to 11 percent in 1972. Women constituted over 40 percent of the persons in this category, the great majority of them being either nurses or teachers. [See Table 5.: Australia, Labor Force by Industry, Selected Years, 1947-71 (in percent)] [See Table 6.: Australia, Labor Force by Occupation, May 1972 (in thousands)] The generally high level of manpower skills was continually refreshed by immigrants, whose numbers were in large part responsible for the growth of the labor force between 1947 and 1972, although there was a tendency at least until the late 1960s to disregard the training and qualifications of immigrants, particularly those from continental Europe. The permanent immigrants arriving in 1971 included a preponderance of industrial production workers and craftsmen, followed by professional and technical workers, clerical workers, and laborers. Data from the latter half of the 1960s indicated a lower proportion of skilled workers in some immigrant nationality groups and a higher proportion in others. Overall, the proportion of skilled workers in the immigrant group was roughly the same as that in the Australian labor force. In 1973 government policy stressed careful planning in the selection of immigrants, paying particular attention to national needs and specific labor requirements. The drift from the countryside to the cities, caused in part by the displacement of the rural work force as a result of mechanization, drought, and farm recession and in part by attractions of urban life, may account for the large number of farmers and agricultural workers who have only a primary education. The better educated and skilled farm children appeared to be moving into urban areas, leaving the farms in the hands of their less educated parents and brothers. Despite the high level of skills found in the work force, labor productivity increased slowly during the 1960s (see ch. 11). Manpower policies were being reviewed in 1973. The ALP government wanted the matter of productivity to be a binding part of labor-management contracts. It was also expected to propose legislation that would increase competition and efficiency and provide retraining to raise the level of skills.