oddlight

What it means to be Australian in 2008

"A landmark in Australian history took us by surprise last year. The population passed 21 million. This time last year the Bureau of Statistics was predicting we'd reach our new millionstone sometime in 2008, based on the theory that we were getting a new baby every two minutes and four seconds and a new immigrant every four minutes.

Then the boffins saw the latest birth and immigration figures and hurriedly revised their calculations, giving us only a few week's notice of the big event on Friday June 29, 2007.

In the mid Noughties, Australian women between 30 and 39 started breeding like bunnies, pushing our birth rate up from 1.79 babies per woman in 2001 to 1.81 in 2006. And the economic boom created huge demand for skilled immigrants, so our net intake rose from 110,000 in 2004-2005 to 147,000 in 2005-2006 -- mostly from Britain, China and India.

If you look at the bureau's population clock today (at www.abs.gov.au), you'll see a figure close to 21,200,000, based on a kid arriving every one minute and 56 seconds and an immigrant joining us every three minutes and five seconds.

This is how the 21 million splits up: 13.3 per cent of us are over 65, 19.8 per cent are under 15, 2.3 per cent are of Aboriginal background, and 22 per cent were born overseas (of whom 1.6 per cent speak Italian at home, 1.3 per cent speak Greek and 1.1 per cent speak Mandarin, like Kevin Rudd.)

Here's what else we can say about ourselves after a year of transformations ...

FAMILY LIFE
In 2006 there were 265,900 births - the highest number since 1971. There were 133,700 deaths, which meant the lowest death rate ever. The health system is keeping us alive longer.

But the demographers think the baby shower will be brief -- more of a blip than a boom -- and by the year 2020, Australia's dominant family type will couples without children. At the moment they form 37 per cent of Australia's 5.7 million families (up from 34 per cent in 1996), while 45 per cent are couples with children (down from 50 per cent), and 15.8 per cent of families have only one parent (up from 14.5). In addition, there are 2.2 million households containing only one person.

As our families shrink, our wealth expands. The average household is earning 30 per cent more than ten years ago, and living large - 77 per cent of homes have at least one empty bedroom. The average household has wealth of $563,000 (assets $655,000, debts $92,000).

But we're spending way ahead of what we're making. The Reserve Bank says Australians owe more than $41 billion on our 13.7 million credit and charge cards, almost double the amount of five years ago. Nearly 32,000 people went bankrupt in 2006-07.

RELATIONSHIPS
Maybe it's laziness, or maybe it's modesty, but an online survey organised by the condom maker Durex found that Australia ranks 12th among 16 western nations in terms of the amount of sex we say we're getting.

On average, Australians said they have sex 106 times a year, and get it over with in 17.3 minutes. That puts us behind Greece (where they claim to have 164 couplings a year), Poland, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Spain, about equal with American and ahead of Japan (with 48 couplings).

Only 40 per cent of Australians described their sex lives as "exciting", compared with a global average of 49 per cent. They blamed stress, fatigue and lack of time in the bedroom for their disappointment.

Despite all this (or as a sympton of it), the marriage rate is rising and the divorce rate is falling. There were 114,222 marriages in 2006 - up from 106,000 in 2001, and 51,375 divorces, down from 55,300. The Bureau of Stats notes that 76.1 per cent of couples "indicated they had cohabited prior to registering their marriage", the naughty things.

Not every couple feels the need to make the relationship official. In the latest census, some 15 per cent of permanent partnerships are de facto (up from 7 per cent in the mid 90s ). Among de facto relationships, four per cent were same sex. About 13,000 male couples and 12,000 female couples were brave enough to specify their relationship on the census form.

FUN AND GAMES
Australians have developed a talent for multitasking when they amuse themselves. Instead of replacing one mode of entertainment with another, they keep adding new media.

That's how come, over the past 12 months, more than three million Australians queued at the multiplex to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Pirates of the Caribbean Three, Shrek The Third and The Simpsons Movie; more than two million Australians watched Kath and Kim, The Chaser's War on Everything, Dancing With The Stars and Thank God You're Here on the box; and hundreds of thousands bought the DVDs Happy Feet, Casino Royale, Summer Heights High and Transformers, the games Halo3, SuperMario Galaxy and The Simpsons Game, and the albums I'm Not Dead, by Pink, On A Clear Night by Missy Higgins, Future Sex/ Love Sounds by Justin Timberlake, and Call me Irresponsible by Michael Buble.

We even found time to indulge in the oldest of media, with more than half a million reading the magical Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the mystical The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and the practical Spotless by Shannon Lush and Jennifer Fleming. And we did all that while chatting with each other via mobile phone, email, MSN, MySpace, bebo and Facebook.

COMMUNITY
As families shrink and working hours expand, you'd think we're at risk of turning into a nation of selfish introverts. But when the Bureau of Statics interviewed people over 18 in 13,000 households about their social networks, 96 per cent of the respondents reported having contact in the previous week with family or friends with whom they did not live, and 93 per cent said they felt able to ask people outside their household for small favours.

Most people were keen on helping others -- 77 per cent said they had donated money to a charitable cause in the past 12 months, while 32 per cent of men and 36 per cent of women said they did volunteer work to help others (both up 2 percentage points on the early Noughties).

Overall, we're cheerful - 84 per cent considered themselves to be in "good, very good or excellent health".

WHAT WE BELIEVE
In the 2006 census, 30 per cent of Australians either wrote "no religion" or left the space blank - a rise from 25 per cent in 1996. So a lack of faith seems to be our fastest growing belief system, followed by Buddhism (up from 1.1 per cent to 2.2 per cent in tenyears) and Islam (up from 1.1 to 1.7). Our most popular religions are Catholic (down from 27.0 per cent to 25.8), and Anglican (down from 22.0 per cent to 18.7).

Other Australian attitudes are revealed in a survey of 4,000 people conducted every two years by the Centre for Social Research at the Australian National University. More than three quarters of the adult population say they agree with these statements:

1. To be truly Australian, it is fairly important that you speak English (92 per cent agreement)
2. The father should be as involved in the care of his children as the mother (90)
3. A woman should have the right to choose whether or not she has an abortion (87)
4. The gap between those with high incomes and those with low incomes is too large (84)
5. Generally speaking, Australia is a better country than most other countries (83)
6. When big businesses break the law they often go unpunished (81).

And that's how Australians are in 2008: we want it all and we want it now and we have no trouble coping with it when we get it."

... found on smh