Australian Social Trends Podcast
Episode 12 – The “average” Australian
Highlights from an article of the same name from the
April 2013 issue of Australian Social Trends.
TRANSCRIPT
Dave:
Hello listeners and welcome to the 12th episode of the Australian Social
Trends podcast series brought to you by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
My name's Dave and Myles has joined me here in the studio today to
discuss the “average” Australian, based on an article from the April issue of
Australian Social Trends.
Thanks for joining me, Myles.
Myles:
Pleasure, Dave.
Dave:
Now Myles, the April AST release was a special edition with all the articles
based on information collected in the last Census of Population and
Housing. Now most people have probably heard of the Census, but could
you please briefly explain the aim of the Census for listeners who might not
be entirely sure what it is?
Myles:
Yes, Dave.
Every five years, the Census aims to visit each and every dwelling across
Australia, and collect information from each and every person. And the last
time we did that was on the 9th of August, 2011.
Dave:
And I’m sure most of our listeners are starting to remember now – we all
had to fill out a form, potentially on line, with lots of information about
ourselves….
Myles:
That’s right Dave. From all that information we collected, we know that in
2011 Australians came from more than 200 different countries, spoke over
300 different languages at home, belonged to more than 100 different
religious groups, and worked in more than 1,000 different occupations.
Dave:
Wow, I mean that sounds like Australia in 2011 was an incredibly diverse
nation. So how did you actually work out who the average Australian was
then?
Myles:
Well we mainly used data from the Census. In some cases, like for hours
worked, calculating the average was easy. In other cases, we have chosen
the largest category, which is what we call the mode, and in most cases that
represented the majority of Australians. So for example, three quarters of
Australians were born in Australia, and therefore we have said that the
average Australian was born in Australia.
Dave:
Thanks Myles. Right, so what can you actually tell us about the average
Australian?
Myles:
Well, over time, the average Australian has changed. In 2011 the average
Australian was a woman. Up until 1979, males outnumbered females in
Australia, but since then females have outnumbered males.
Dave:
And how about age then? How old was the average Australian?
Myles:
The average Australian has become a lot older due to the ageing
population. A hundred years ago, in 1911, they were 24, in 1961, they were
29, and in 2011 they were 37.
Dave:
That’s quite a change. What about where people were born? You
mentioned before that Australians came from over 200 countries?
Myles:
That’s right. But despite all that diversity, the average Australian was born in
Australia, and so were both of their parents. Just over half of people had
both their parents born in Australia. The most common country of birth for
people who were born overseas was the United Kingdom. However, about
one in four Australians were born overseas.
Dave:
Well, to me it sounds like the ancestry of most Australians was probably still
European?
Myles:
Yeah it was. A bit more than a third of people said that they had English
ancestry, slightly more than said they had Australian ancestry. If you add in
Irish and Scottish, and keeping in mind that people can report more than
one ancestry, about three quarters of Australian had English, Australian,
Irish or Scottish ancestry.
Dave:
Did more people say that they had Australian ancestry than they used to?
Myles:
Yes. Back in 1986 when ancestry was first asked on the Census, 23% of
people said that they had Australian ancestry. In 2011 that was 35%.
Dave:
And I imagine it would it be safe to say that the average Australian speaks
English?
Myles:
Yeah, that’s right, the average Australian only spoke English at home. In
2011, about four out of five people reported only speaking English at home.
Dave:
Were there any other languages spoken commonly at home though?
Myles:
The most common language other than English spoken at home in Australia
is now Mandarin. Cantonese was also up there as one of the most
commonly spoken languages other than English.
Dave:
OK, how about religion? Did the average Australian belong to any particular
religion?
Myles:
Yes. Christianity is the most common religion, with Catholics being
Australia’s largest religious group. But the proportion of people who were
Christian had fallen by more than a third in the last century, from 96% in
1911 to 61% in 2011.
Dave:
What about other religions?
Myles:
Well in 1961, by far the largest non-Christian religion was Judaism. It
outnumbered all other non-Christian groups combined by more than six to
one. But by 2011, Judaism was actually a distant fourth behind Buddhism,
Islam, and Hinduism.
Dave:
But there are also people who don’t have any religion, what’s been the trend
there?
Myles:
Well since 1971 the proportion of people with no religion has risen from
under 7% to more than 22% of Australians.
Dave:
Thanks Myles, that’s very interesting. Now let’s look at the work front. Was
the average Australian working?
Myles:
The average man and the average woman are both in paid employment.
According to the 2011 Census, 67% of men and 56% of women aged 15 or
more were employed.
Dave:
Alright, what were they employed as?
Myles:
Well, for both men and women the most common occupation in Australia in
2011 was sales assistant, and that reflects the large number of part-time
sales assistants in the labour force.
Dave:
And were there some other common jobs Myles?
Myles:
For men, other common occupations were truck drivers, electricians, and
retail managers; for women other common occupations were general clerks,
primary school teachers, and office managers.
Dave:
And I guess these have probably changed a bit over time?
Myles:
Yes, they certainly have, and quite a lot. In 1911, the most common
occupations for men were farmers and farm labourers, while the most
common occupations for women were house servants and clothing makers.
In 1961, the most common occupations for men were clerks or truck or van
drivers for men, and stenographers or typists and shop assistants for
women.
Dave:
Alright, well they certainly have changed. What about the hours that they
work?
Myles:
Well, the average employed man tends to work longer hours than the
average employed woman. For those who worked in the week prior to
Census in 2011, men worked an average of 41 hours, and women worked
on average 32 hours.
Dave:
OK, so the average man worked longer than the average women, but how
about work at home though? Did women do more house work than men?
Myles:
Yes they did. The average man did less than 5 hours of domestic work in
the week prior to Census, while the average woman did 5 hours or more.
Dave:
Less than 5 hours for men!? I guess you’re dragging down our average then
Myles?
Myles:
Haha!
Dave:
What about education? It seems that education has been in the headlines
quite a lot lately. What can you tell us on that front?
Myles:
Well, the average Australian has finished Year 12 or equivalent, and also
has a non-school qualification. There has been quite an increase in the
proportion having a non-school qualification. In 2011, just over half of
people aged 15 and over had one, more than twice as many as in 1981.
Dave:
That’s quite a change.
Myles:
Yes that’s right.
Dave:
So what type of qualification was most common?
Myles:
The most common level of qualification was a Certificate level qualification,
and the most common field of study was Business and management.
Dave:
Very well, OK then let’s just move onto something else. Myles, where did
the average Australian live?
Myles:
The average Australian lived in one of our state or territory capitals. In 2011,
about three out of every five people lived in a capital city. They lived in a 3
bedroom house with a mortgage and the average mortgage repayment is
$1800 a month, and they lived at the same address 5 years ago as well.
Dave:
And who were they living with?
Myles:
Well, the average Australian lives in a couple family. More than half of
couple families had children, and amongst these families, the most common
family size was four people, two adults and two kids. In families with two
dependent children, about half had one girl and one boy. The median age of
the eldest child was 9, and the median age of the younger child was 6.
Dave
Well it sounds like the typical nuclear family was alive and well in Australia
in 2011. Did they also have a car?
Myles:
Yes, the average household actually has two or more cars.
Dave:
OK so what else can you tell us about their physical characteristics?
Myles:
Well, the average man was 176 cm tall, that’s about 5 feet 9 and they
weighed 86 kg. The average woman was 162 cm tall, or around 5 feet 4,
and weighed 71 kg. Both men and women are taller and weigh more on
average than they were when we measured them in 1995.
Dave:
So would you say that the average Australian is overweight now?
Myles:
Yes, that’s right. Both the average man and the average woman fall into the
overweight category.
Dave:
Not really the best news. Well that’s really a lot of information you just
shared with us. Are there actually many average Australians out there?
Myles:
No there aren’t. While many people will share a number of characteristics in
common with this "average" Australian, out of the nearly 22 million people
we counted in Australia on Census Night, on the 9th of August 2011, there
wasn’t anyone with all those criteria I just mentioned.
So while that description of the average Australian may sound quite typical,
the fact that no-one out there meets all those criteria shows that the notion
of the "average" masks that considerable (and growing) diversity we have in
Australia.
Dave:
It certainly does. Well, thank you very much for your time today Myles you've given us some great info on the “average” Australian, and it will be
really interesting to see in future years who the “average” Australian is then.
Myles:
Yes, now worries, Dave, and yes it will be interesting.
Dave:
Thanks again Myles. And for listeners who'd like to know more, the full
article is available on the Australian Social Trends home page at
www.abs.gov.au/socialtrends. Don't forget, if you have any feedback, you
can send us an email via social.reporting@abs.gov.au.
There are also some articles there that we've just released in our April
issue. These other articles are Towns of the mining boom, Doctors and
nurses, and Young adults: Then and now, so there's some good reading
there for those who are interested. We’re working on getting some more of
these podcasts to you soon so that’s something to look forward to as well.
So that's it for this particular podcast. Thank you for listening and bye for
now.
Myles:
Bye.