Population Sustainability

The federal government has recently appointed its first population minister amid extensive public debate over how to respond to rapid growth in Australia’s current birth rate, population ageing, and a projected increase from 22 million to 36 million people by 2050. Current trends and policies involving population growth will have a major impact on Australia’s future sustainability and quality of life. This book features statistical projections for Australia’s population size and presents a wide range of viewpoints in the population debate. Issues include the skills shortage and employment, immigration intake levels and cultural diversity, environmental sustainability and water management, government service delivery, urban congestion and infrastructure capacity, the cost of housing, and the potential economic growth benefits. Do we want or need a ‘big Australia’? Is bigger better, or does growth come at too great a cost?

Chapter 1: Population Growth in Australia

Chapter 2: The Population Debate

Glossary; Fast facts; Web links; Index

Fast facts:

• Australia’s population is growing at twice the rate of the rest of the world, after crashing through 22 million in late 2009.
• ‘Natural’ population growth – births less deaths – came to 154,500 in 2009, while migration contributed 297,400 people.
• From around 21 million people in 2006, Australia’s population is projected to grow to between 30.9 million and 42.5 million people in 2056, and to reach between 33.7 million and 62.2 million in 2101.
• The growth, size and age structure of the population are interlinked with social, economic and environmental conditions.
• The median age of women having children is now 30.8 years.
• Cities are a key driver of national productivity growth. By 2020, over 90% of Australians will live in urban areas.
• In Australia between now and 2050, the number of people aged 65 to 84 years is expected to more than double and the number of people 85 and over more than quadruple.
• Over the past 40 years, about 42% of the increase in Australia’s real GDP has been due to population growth.
• Australia’s population has a much greater environmental impact than the growing population of a poor country. We are the heaviest carbon users in the world, about 23 tonnes per capita.
• In the first 2 million years of human existence, the global human population was only a few million. Up to 1950, it had managed to climb to 2 billion. In the 50-odd years since, it has trebled to 6 billion people.
• Assuming modest rates of population growth, we will use 70% of the world’s accessible fresh water by 2025.
• United Nations figures for the total population rates for the planet reveal that our population will peak at around 2050 at just over 9.1 billion human beings.