The Population Debate

Editor: Justin Healey
ISBN 978 1 920801 34 2
Year 2005

Price: $20.95

  

The Population Debate
Volume 224, Issues in Society

Australia’s population is estimated to grow from 20 million people to about 25 million by mid-century, before it stabilises and begins to decline. The birth rate is declining and the population is ageing. Current trends and policies involving population growth will have a major impact on Australia’s future sustainability. This book presents a wide range of viewpoints in Australia’s population debate – issues include immigration intake levels, environmental sustainability, economic growth, infrastructure concerns, policies to encourage workers to retire later and women to have more children.

Chapter 1  Population Size and Growth in Australia
Population size and growth; Population projections for Australia; Fertility: a baby bounce for Australia?; Why we can’t have kids for love or money; So, will you do it for your country?; Economic implications of an ageing Australia; Future dilemmas for Australia’s population; We’ll be right with 50 million; Signposts to the future.

Chapter 2  Australia’s Population Debate
Populate or perish?; Bid for more babies; Immigration continues to divide; Populate or perish: the new paradox; The nation after 20 million; The risk now is to populate and perish; Let’s celebrate the need to breed; Damaged environment demands we cut our population; Why is human population growth an environmental issue?; More people mean a stronger, wealthier nation; The big boys say size does matter; Australia’s population future – sustaining population growth and supporting participation; No correlation between high immigration and healthy economy; Lie back and think of Australia; Lies and the landscape; Attitudes hold the key to driving growth; The crisis of our ageing population, and other fairytales; This problem needs a grander vision; Good news about our ageing population.

Glossary; Facts and Figures; Additional Resources; Index



FAST FACTS from this volume
  • Australia’s estimated resident population at June 2003 was just under 19.9 million, an increase of 1.2% over the previous year. This figure has increased by 12.5% over the past decade. Australia’s growth rate of 1.2% for the 12 months to June 2003 was the same as the overall world growth rate.
  • Australia’s population grew from 3.8 million at the beginning of the 20th century to 19.9 million in 2003. During the 1950s Australia experienced consistently high rates of growth, with an average annual increase of 2.3% from 1950 to 1959, while during the 1930s Australia experienced relatively low growth (0.8%).
  • Natural increase has been the main source of the growth of Australia’s population since the beginning of the 20th century, contributing around two-thirds of the total increase between 1901 and 2003. Net overseas migration, while a significant source of growth, is more volatile, fluctuating under the influence of government policy as well as political, economic and social conditions in Australia and the rest of the world.
  • Since 1962 falling fertility has led to a fall in the rate of natural increase. In 1971 the rate was 12.7 persons per 1,000 population; a decade later it had fallen to 8.5. In 1996 the rate of natural increase fell below 7.0 for the first time, with the downward trend continuing from then on. ABS population projections indicate that continued low fertility, combined with an increase in deaths due to an ageing population, will result in natural increase falling below zero sometime in the mid-2030s.
  • Since 1901 the crude death rate has fallen from 12.2 deaths per 1,000 population to a low of 6.6 which was recorded in 2001. The crude birth rate has declined by 53% from 27.2 births per 1,000 population recorded in 1901 to 12.7, the lowest ever birth rate, which was recorded in 2001.
  • The median age of the Australian population – the age at which half the population is older and half is younger – has increased by 6.0 years in the last 20 years from 30.2 years in 1983 to 36.1 years in 2003.
  • Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Australia’s annual population growth rate has been in excess of 1%. In part this is due to natural increase, or an excess of births over deaths. In 2001-02, there were 246,300 births and 130,500 deaths in Australia, contributing 115,900 people through natural increase.
  • Projections indicate that deaths will exceed births in the future, leading to a state of natural decrease from between 2029-30 (Series C) and 2070-71 (Series A). Therefore, while growth will continue at around its current rate for the next 4-15 years (except under Series C), it will slow throughout the remainder of the projection period, as net overseas migration increasingly becomes the main source of growth. Growth will eventually become negative sometime between 2040 (Series C) and 2070 (Series B), as NOM fails to compensate for natural decrease.
  • Population targets suggested for Australia have ranged as low as 6 million and as high as 50 million people. Given current levels of fertility, and historical levels of migration, such targets are impossible to reach within the foreseeable future.
  • On current rates about 24 per cent of young women will have no children, 21 per cent will have one, 27 per cent two, 18 per cent three, 6 per cent four and 4 per cent five or more.
  • According to The Fertility Decision Making Project, a survey by the Australian Institute of Family Studies: the ideal number of children is two (the most popular number among 20- to 39-year-olds) or three (second most popular); people expected to have fewer children than their ideal number; two-thirds of men and two-fifths of women were childless, but only 8 per cent said they did not want children; better educated women wanted children as much as less educated, but they were less likely to have had them; and women in full-time work were less likely to have children than part-time or jobless women.
  • Australia faces a pronounced ageing of its population over the next forty years. One quarter of Australians will be aged 65 years or more by 2044-45, roughly double the present proportion.
  • In itself, population ageing should not be seen as a problem, as it reflects the beneficial effects of improved life expectancy and voluntary control over fertility. However, it will give rise to economic and fiscal impacts that pose significant policy challenges.
  • The number aged 65 and over is expected to double in the next 20 to 30 years. With fewer people of working age it is anticipated that there may be problems with shortages of labour, higher welfare and health costs, and lower economic growth. While some of this impact may be offset by people working longer or improvements in productivity, the likely result is a lower standard of living for Australians. Once populations begin to shrink they take considerable time to rebuild.
  • The United Nations estimates that the world’s population will grow from its present 6.1 billion to 9.3 billion in 2050.
  • Australians leave a heavy “footprint’’ on the Earth – we use more energy than people in undeveloped countries. Without changing economic conditions, the environment would suffer more from a larger population. We must examine land, energy and resource use if we decide on a larger population.
  • The population of Australia has passed the 20 million mark. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that the overall population increases by one person every two minutes and seven seconds (after taking into account births, deaths and migration).
  • If the downward trend continues, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has projected average births per woman could fall from 1.75 to as low as 1.4 by 2011.