The results of the latest Census revealed an increasingly diverse global population in Australia, with more than 300 separately identified languages spoken in homes across the country.
More than one-fifth (21%) of Australians now speak a language other than English at home, according to the Census, with about one third born overseas. From more than 6.1 million overseas-born persons, nearly one in five (18%) had arrived since the start of 2012.
The Census shows that Australia has a higher proportion of overseas-born people (26%) than the United States (14%), Canada (22%), New Zealand (23%) and the United Kingdom (13%). This makes Australia a hugely diverse nation. Dig a generation deeper and our diversity becomes even richer. People born overseas, or who had at least one parent born overseas, made up almost half (49%) of our entire population in 2016.
The proportion of overseas-born persons born in China and India has increased from 6% to 8.3%, and 5.6% to 7.4% respectively since 2011, and Malaysia now appeared in the top 10 countries of birth replacing Scotland.
As the population has continued to diversify, we have also seen a greater number of new and emerging languages requested for interpreting and translations services – with 15 languages serviced for the first time
This is the changing face of our nation. Our own ‘nation of nations’ continues to flourishwith each Census.
Taken from www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/2024.0
