Indigenous births make up around five per cent of all births in Australia each year, at around thirteen thousand. Indigenous children make up around five percent of all school-children in Australia. Yet Indigenous people make up barely three per cent of all Australians over twenty. The decline at about eighteen is quite stark.

There has indeed been a marked increase in the number of Indigenous births since about 1980. But this is only a small part of the answer to the puzzle. A much larger component may reflect the impact of migration and the welcoming of refugees. Around two hundred thousand migrants shift to Australia each year primarily for work opportunities. Not too many of them would be young children: most would be at least twenty years old. Australia is probably where most migrants start to have their own children who are, by definition, Australian children. The proportion of children amongst refugees may be higher, but of the current twelve or fifteen thousand refugees coming to Australia each year, the numbers of children would be very low.

In a sense, migrants and refugees are effectively ‘born’ in Australia at the age of twenty or more. So over the last twenty years, while some 240,000 Indigenous children have been born, perhaps four million migrants and refugees have arrived here, but not too many of them would have been under twenty: most of them would have been young adults. In that sense, the Australian population gets a boost across the years of young adult numbers.

The obverse, in relation to the Indigenous population, is that, from twenty or so, their numbers make up a declining share of the total Australian population as it ages – from five percent amongst, say, 15-19-year-olds, to four percent amongst twenty-to-twenty-five-year-olds, three percent amongst older age groups up to about forty and less than two percent in older groups.

In total, although Indigenous children make up five percent of all Australian children, the Indigenous population forms around 2.5 % of the whole population, as it has done for more than forty years

Hi Joe,

You do not mention life expectancy, which for indigenous people is at least 10 years less than the Australian average. Health standards for Aboriginal people are very low, with half the male population, and a third of the female population dying before reaching the age of 45. Over 70% die before reaching the normal retirement age of 65.
Shocking statistics that should not be seen in any first world country, in fact anywhere for that matter!

Hi Paul,

[Second time around, rotten computer. Copy as you go]

Yes indeed, high and avoidable mortality is a very distressing factor. Most of the Aboriginal people who I've ever known have gone, usually far too early, in their twenties and thirties and even younger. Lovely people, full of fun and life, who didn't even reach middle age.

So yes, that's another factor in reducing the proportion of Indigenous people in the Australian population. But although I've known a few Indigenous university graduates who have passed away too early, the great majority of early deaths have occurred in the welfare-oriented population - car crashes, suicides, drownings, ODs, early deaths from diabetes and strokes. My son's best friend burnt to death in a car crash. My wife's best friend hanged herself. Welfare may be necessary but it can be a killer.

Because of those two factors - migration and early mortality - the Indigenous population will tend to stay around 2.5 % of the Australian total, even if Indigenous births continue to make up around 5 % of all births. Alarmingly, it appears that the Indigenous birth-rate is actually falling. We'll be able to observe current trends when this year's Census figures become available, hopefully next year.

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joe,

What it is, often people from low socio-economic backgrounds, black and white both, suffer more from lifestyle related illnesses associated with diet, smoking, alcohol drugs etc. their lack of basic understanding of health issues. I suspect, but don't know, poor white people in our society could also have, say a 5% pf births, but also be only 2.5% of the adult population for the very same reasons.

My partner has said to me, there are no old people back home in my tribe anymore. When we go back I can see why, what they eat, saturated fats, alcohol, sugar, salt, smoking (very high) and the rest. Funny though when she was young there were many more old people in the rural NZ Maori population, although the infant mortality rate was higher than today. "T" puts it down to a much healthier diet then with a good part of a natural bush and vegetable component, which has now been replaced with less healthier processed European foods containing more fats, sugars and salt.

Hi Paul,

Yes, poor diet and no exercise associated with lifelong welfare, as well as a sort of casual attitude to risky behaviour, would account for much of the premature mortality.

But immigration kicks up the number in the population who are already well and truly born and who tend to come to Australia aged post-20. Check out the numbers of non-Indigenous Australians at the 2011 Census, and note the rise AFTER 20 years of age:

0 - 4 years 1,282,738
5 - 9 years 1,222,112
10 - 14 years 1,241,793
15 - 19 years 1,282,019
20 - 24 years 1,333,621
25 - 29 years 1,387,922
30 - 34 years 1,345,762
35 - 39 years 1,414,171
40 - 44 years 1,438,346
45 - 49 years 1,407,494
50 - 54 years 1,357,678
55 - 59 years 1,220,530
60 - 64 years 1,138,394

Of course, a small number of children accompany immigrants and refugees, adding to the younger age-group numbers. But on the whole, migrants and refugees arrive as adults, contributing for decades without costing the Australian taxpayer much for their education etc.

But it is surely telling that in the Census, post-20 NON-Indigenous Australian age-groups INCREASE in numbers well into middle-age: there more non-Indigenous Australians aged in their fifties (2,578,208) than those under ten (2,504,850), thanks, I respectfully suggest, to immigration.

By stark contrast, in the 2011 Census, Indigenous people in their fifties numbered only 42,965, compared with 132,349 under ten.

So one could predict that, if Indigenous welfare-oriented people continue with their current diet-exercise-violence regime, and immigration numbers are maintained, then the proportion of Indigenous people in the total population will never rise above its current 2.5-2.6 %. And if the Indigenous birth-rate falters, that proportion will decline. Those are the hard realities.

Is that 'blaming the victim' ? Probably, and for the above reasons.

Cheers,

Joe

Hi Joe,

With immigration we also have the 'family reunion' program which produces many instant old people. Immigration definitely has an impact on an aging population, as does a falling birth rate, and Australia has a falling birth rate. We had a 2 child per woman rate for a number of years then it dropped to 1.8 in 2014, as raw numbers that is a 10,000 less births in 2014 compared to 2013.
As a believer in SUSTAINABILITY I see a zero population growth, on a world scale, as desirable, if not imperative, for the well being of mankind, a very lofty ideal indeed. It does ruffle me somewhat to hear polititions like Turnbull and Shorten banging on about economic growth, economic growth, a couple of demented parrots. Like a dog chasing its tail, if the population is growing at 3% p/a, you need to achieve 3% economic growth just to break even, oh! the shock horror if its only 2.9$ when you needed 3%, then it a real dummy spit, is it not? How long can we keep raising the bar and still hope to jump over it. I know there are problems associated with a very low birth rate, China found that out with its one child policy, an aging population, not enough young'n to do the work, but I think those problems are lesser than the problems of overpopulation.

The web site below frightens me. When I posted this it the big number was 7,431,519,422, What is it when you read it?

http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/