population sustainability

Editor: Justin Healey
ISBN 978 1 921507 28 1
Year 2010

Price: $20.95

  

Population Sustainability
Volume 317, Issues in Society

The federal government has recently appointed its first population minister amid extensive public debate over how to respond to rapid growth in Australia’s current birth rate, population ageing, and a projected increase from 22 million to 36 million people by 2050. Current trends and policies involving population growth will have a major impact on Australia’s future sustainability and quality of life. This book features statistical projections for Australia’s population size and presents a wide range of viewpoints in the population debate. Issues include the skills shortage and employment, immigration intake levels and cultural diversity, environmental sustainability and water management, government service delivery, urban congestion and infrastructure capacity, the cost of housing, and the potential economic growth benefits. Do we want or need a ‘big Australia’? Is bigger better, or does growth come at too great a cost?

Chapter 1: Population Growth in Australia
Population growing at twice global average: ABS; Future population growth and ageing; Long-term population trends; Population to now hit 35 million by 2049; Migration waves; Women delivering more bundles of economic joy; PM flips on ‘big Australia’; Planning for future population needs; Immigration no cure-all for the country’s ageing population; Australia’s ageing population.

Chapter 2: The Population Debate
Bring on the population debate; Women don’t want a bigger population; It’s time for open discussion on how big is too big; People problem inflated; Population growth: a mixed blessing; Populate or perish?; Populate or perish still true; Human impact on the environment is costing us dearly; If we want more people we have to plan better; Population debate takes a green twist; More people does not equal trashing our environment; Estimated Fiscal Impact of proposed 2008-09 Migration and Humanitarian programs; If Norway can prosper with a stable population, why can’t Australia?; Populate and prosper; Reality check on growth; Give or take a million, there’s nothing to fear; Perish the thought that we can handle a bigger population; Wake up to the opportunities in population growth; Leaders need to admit population is the problem; Migrants key to replacing baby boomers; Too many people, not enough resources.

Glossary; Fast Facts; Web Links; Index



fast facts
FAST FACTS from this volume
  • Australia’s population is growing at twice the rate of the rest of the world, after crashing through 22 million late last year.
  • ‘Natural’ population growth – births less deaths – came to 154,500 for the year, while migration contributed 297,400 people.
  • From around 21 million people in 2006, Australia’s population is projected to grow to between 30.9 million and 42.5 million people in 2056, and to reach between 33.7 million and 62.2 million in 2101.
  • The number of people aged 85 years and over is also projected to increase rapidly, going from 344,000 in 2007 to 1.7 million in 2056.
  • The growth, size and age structure of the population are interlinked with social, economic and environmental conditions.
  • Countries with low population growth face more extreme ageing challenges, with greater demands for publicly-funded social services and a reduced ability to meet these challenges.
  • Australia’s population will hit 35 million in 40 years – 7 million more than had been expected – as a rising birthrate and rapid migration almost double the rate of population growth.
  • The net number of migrants (immigrants less emigrants) has risen from 146,800 two years ago to 213,700.
  • This year, fewer than half the Australian teenagers who quit school have found a full-time job. Young people lost a net 122,000 full-time jobs in the year to July.
  • The post-war baby boom occurred because, between 1945 and 1972, women started their families earlier and earlier. After 1972 the trend reversed and women started their families later and later.
  • Australia’s growth rate is now twice the global average, even outstripping that in some developing nations including the Philippines, Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.
  • The median age of women having children is now 30.8 years.
  • Cities are a key driver of national productivity growth. By 2020, over 90% of Australians will live in urban areas.
  • Australia’s birthrate rose from 1.72 to 1.94 per woman in the five years to 2007-08 but that is still below the replacement rate.
  • The number of people aged 65 to 84 years is expected to more than double and the number of people 85 and over more than quadruple.
  • In 2007, Treasury used a net immigration figure of 110,000 a year for its projections. Its new population figure is consistent with net immigration of 180,000 a year.
  • There’s currently over 500,000 Kiwis living in this country, that’s 100,000 more than there were just 5 years ago.
  • 72% of Australians said they wanted a bigger population for Australia by 2050. The most popular response (43% of people) was for a population of 30 million, but 23% chose 40 million and 6%, 50 million people or more.
  • Over the past 40 years, about 42% of the increase in Australia’s real GDP has been due to population growth.
  • The cost of traffic congestion will rise from $9.4 billion in 2005 to over $20 billion in 2020, according to the State of Australian Cities 2010 report released last week.
  • In 2009, there were 82,710 permanent departures from Australia. At present, around 14,000 people come to Australia each year as part of our refugee and humanitarian programs and some 60,000 more move here as part of the family reunion intake.
  • In 1945 there were 7 million Australians; in the follow-ing 65 years we grew by more than 300%. In 1966 there were 11 million Australians, so in the 44 years since then we have grown by 100%.
  • The first national report on the state of the environment noted nearly 15 years ago that we have to produce more export income from rural Australia, mostly from agriculture and mining, to pay for the imports of our growing urban population.
  • Our current population growth rate of 2.1% is higher than that of most third world countries. At this rate we will not reach 36 million (as the Government claims) by 2050, but around 50 million.
  • By 2036, Melbourne’s population may be approaching 7 million and regional Victoria will grow by up to 500,000 people.
  • No fewer than 11 OECD nations achieved faster per-capita economic growth than Australia from 1997-2007, despite slower population growth or even in some cases no population growth or a slight decline.
  • A recent Nielsen poll found that 40% of those surveyed believed that 35 million Australians is too many, with only 2% suggesting the number is too small.
  • Even with net overseas migration reduced from its current high of at least 285,000 to a more ‘normal’ net 90,000 per annum, Australia’s workforce will still grow by about a million over the decade from 2008 to 2018.
  • Sydney’s population jumped from about 40,000 in 1850 to having 482,000 inhabitants at Federation.
  • Only 1 in 10 Australians held strongly negative views about immigration, while 37% of the 3,800 respondents thought our immigration intake was too high.
  • In the first 2 million years of human existence, the global human population was only a few million. Up to 1950, it had managed to climb to 2 billion. In the 50-odd years since, it has trebled to 6 billion people.
  • Assuming modest rates of population growth, we will use 70% of the world’s accessible fresh water by 2025.
  • A United Nations Population Fund report released in June 2007 says that, as a result, a billion people – one-sixth of the world’s population – live in slums.
  • Over 12,000 varieties of animal, plant and water life are critically endangered. 30% of Australia’s 760 bird species are under threat.
  • United Nations figures released in March for the total population rates for the planet reveal that our population will peak at around 2050 at just over 9.1 billion human beings.
  • If we’re to reach that level of just over 9 billion people in the world 40 years from now, that rate will need to drop to 2.5 children each.
  • Australia’s population has a much greater environmental impact than the growing population of a poor country. We are the heaviest carbon users in the world, about 23 tonnes per capita.