Explore Indicators
Population & migration trends
What is the indicator?
This indicator measures changes in the number and characteristics of people living in a given geographic location. This can include monitoring:
- Change in the total population (number of people living in the community)
- In-migration (the number of new people arriving to live in a community)
- Out-migration (the number of residents shifting away from the community)
- Age structure (change in the proportion of residents in different age groups)
- Average length of residence (average number of years a person lives in the community)
Change in population can be driven by many factors, including changes in economic opportunities, availability and quality of services and infrastructure, and local amenity and overall liveability.
What can this tell us about wellbeing?
Some types of change in population provide important insights into whether a community is successfully providing what is needed for residents to have a good quality of life. In particular, a rapid decline in the number of people living in a community suggests that the community is no longer providing some of the things needed for a good quality of life, and as a result many are choosing to leave. This can be caused by many things, including declining amenity, declining services and infrastructure, or falling employment and income earning opportunities. On the other side, however, it is less clear how to interpret population growth. Rapid population growth is not always positive for the wellbeing of residents, as it can place pressure on the amenity and liveability of a region that helped encourage the population growth in the first place. Care is needed in interpreting the implications of population growth for things such as amenity and liveability, economic opportunity, and services and infrastructure, with some communities able to manage population growth while maintaining amenity, liveability, services and infrastructure, while others do not.
Find out more about amenity as a driver of rural population change: Argent, N., Tonts, M., Jones, R. and Holmes, J., 2010. Amenity-led migration in rural Australia: a new driver of local demographic and environmental change?. In Demographic change in Australia’s rural landscapes: Implications for society and the environment (pp. 23-44). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
Find out more about challenges of amenity-related migration: Gosnell, H. and Abrams, J., 2011. Amenity migration: diverse conceptualizations of drivers, socioeconomic dimensions, and emerging challenges. GeoJournal, 76(4), pp.303-322.
Advantages and disadvantages of this indicator
Advantages: Understanding how rapidly the size of the local population is changing, and the ways in which it is changing, provides important insights into potential pressures on wellbeing of a community, and into whether changes in determinants of wellbeing – such as changes in living cost affordability, availability of local services and infrastructure, amenity and liveability – are resulting in fundamental changes to the local population.
Disadvantages: Population change on its own – whether growth or decline – does not automatically mean there is a change in wellbeing. It is possible for communities to manage significant population change processes while continuing to support the wellbeing of their residents. Therefore any change in population should not be assumed to represent a change in wellbeing, but should be taken as a sign of a need to investigate whether and how quality of life is changing for local residents.
What measures should I use for this indicator?
Population change in Australia is primarily estimated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Change in rural populations is available every five years from the ABS Census of Population and Housing. Between Censuses, data on births, deaths and migration is used by the ABS to estimate annual change in regional populations. In addition to ABS data, the Regional Australia Institute publishes the ‘Regional Movers Index’ quarterly, providing information on how many people are moving between cities and regional areas in Australia.
Measures
Every five years, the Census of Population and Housing (CPH) produces a comprehensive set of data on the number and characteristics of people living in every part of Australia, including data for every town, local government areas, and multiple other types of geographic region. CPH data are available in multiple forms on the ABS website. Searching the ABS website for data by local government area provides multiple ways data can be accessed and downloaded.
CPH data provide comprehensive data on the size of regional populations, and the characteristics of populations, down to small area scales. However, there are some limitations of the data. In some regional areas, not all people opt to participate in the Census; as a result the population can be underestimated. It is important to examine what is known about the level of Census undercount and overcount for different regions and population groups (see for example the 2021 report). This is particularly the case for regions with high numbers of temporary or seasonal workers, or with a large population of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. For example, across the Northern Territory in 2021 it was estimated 6% of the population did not participate in the Census, resulting in under-estimation of the total population.
Care is also needed to consider whether the population residing in an area in August – the month in which Census data are collected – reflect the typical population of the area.
Estimates of total population are produced in different ways from the Census:
- Estimated resident population identifies how many people were usually resident in a given place on Census night, even if they were away from home on Census night. This is done by asking all people where they usually live.
- Place of enumeration data identifies how many people were residing in a given place on Census night, even if they didn’t usually reside there. This includes people temporarily visiting a place. This means locations such as the snowfield areas of Australia have a much higher population when counted by place of enumeration (with the Census being undertaken during winter) than when counted by place of usual residence.
These limitation means that for some regional areas, Census data need careful interpretation, particularly where there are many residents who may not participate in the Census.
You can find out what proportion of the population is in different age groups, from different cultural backgrounds, and a wide range of other information, using the wide range of data tools available on the ABS CPH ‘Find Census Data’ webpage. These allow users to search for and access CPH data for regions across Australia including local government areas, towns and localities.
It is usually difficult to accurately measure population change in your own survey. However, in small communities it may be possible to do this based on local knowledge. Additionally, some communities who have large populations of temporary residents use surveys to estimate how many additional people are living in their community (often seasonally) compared to those recorded in official population statistics.
Between Censuses, population change in regional areas of Australia is estimated by the ABS in its Regional Population data series. Once a year, data are updated for all local government areas (LGAs) across Australia, as well as other geographies such as Statistical Areas, and published. The Regional Population data series includes estimates of natural change in population (births and deaths of people living in the region), and net migration (people moving to and from the area being examined, both within Australia and overseas). Separately, data are published on the number of births and deaths, for every LGA across Australia. To find data for your part of Australia, look for the ‘data downloads’ section of the Regional Population, births and deaths ABS webpages.
The annual Regional Population estimates provide useful insight into how population may be changing in a rural area. However, they have some limitations. In particular, estimates of in- and out-migration from regional areas can have delays, as they are based on Medicare change of address data and Department of Defence records between Censuses. Delays in registering changes of address can mean that some migration is not recorded for a period of time after it occurs. As the Regional Population estimate also relies on Census data, it has similar limitations to population data from the Census.
Data can be sourced directly from the ABS, to local government area scale, via the Regional Population, births and deaths pages. To find data for your part of Australia, look for the ‘data downloads’ section of the Regional Population, births and deaths ABS webpages.
It is usually difficult to accurately measure population change in your own survey. However, in small communities it may be possible to do this based on local knowledge. Additionally, some communities who have large populations of temporary residents use surveys to estimate how many additional people are living in their community (often seasonally) compared to those recorded in official population statistics.
The Regional Movers Index, produced quarterly by the Regional Australia Institute, uses data from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) to identify the rate of net internal migration, city to regional migration and regional to regional migration, with data produced by local government area (LGA), state and territory.
The Regional Movers Index provides useful insight into how many people are shifting, and the type of places they are shifting to and from. It enables insight into how many people are moving to a regional area from cities and other regional areas, as well as how many are leaving a regional area. However, it is based on data from a single financial institution. While the CBA has large numbers of customers in all regions, it is possible that the data have some limitations due to only including CBA customers.
Data are available in the quarterly Regional Movers Index reports, produced quarterly by the Regional Australia Institute, which include tables of migration data by LGA.
It is usually difficult to accurately measure population change in your own survey. However, in small communities it may be possible to do this based on local knowledge. A well designed survey, if it achieves a robust sample, can be used to estimate what proportion of residents have moved to a region recently, and the types of places they have come from (e.g. a city versus a rural community).