Estimating the components of Indigenous population change, 1996-2001

Summary Every five years, the national Census of Population and Housing provides a window on the demographic, social and economic characteristics of Australia’s Indigenous population. Of particular interest to demographers is the opportunity that this provides to benchmark intercensal population estimates and to estimate the components of intercensal population change. In line with each census count of Indigenous Australians since 1971, when a question on self-identified Indigenous origins was introduced, the 2001 count produced an intercensal change in numbers that cannot be explained by demographic processes alone. Unpredictability thus remains a hallmark of Indigenous population growth. In accounting for the unexplained component of population growth we refer to changes in census coverage rather than specifically to changes in propensity to identify. The former may include the latter, although to what extent is unknown. In truth, we still cannot determine the factors that contribute to non-demographic population growth, although it is possible to speculate. There is evidence of a highly systematic movement of people into the census-identified Indigenous population in 1996, and out of the population in 2001. This is suggestive of procedural or processing change, as much as anything else. A striking feature of the 2001 Census analysis is that Indigenous women’s fertility has reached, or may even now be below, replacement level, confirming the findings from recent ABS analysis of births registration data. Aside from the momentum for growth already built into the Indigenous age structure, and any further increased identification, it is therefore only the contribution made by Indigenous births to non-Indigenous women that will now sustain Indigenous population growth. Of particular note is a substantial decline in Indigenous teenage fertility. Even if this is independent of any rise in economic participation, it nonetheless reduces one of the barriers to participation and, if it continued, would lead to further downward pressure on fertility. At the same time, Indigenous fertility levels vary regionally, with high levels still reported in many remote regions. By contrast, the continued lack of convergence between Indigenous and non-Indigenous mortality rates is striking. The census provides confirmation of