Indian population in Australia fastest-growing migrant group

As per Australia's latest census, more than 27 percent (27.6 percent) of the country's population are foreign-born. Among these foreign-born people, the number of Indians has increased the most. India has overtaken China and New Zealand and now ranks third after Australia and England.

According to census data released on Tuesday, almost half of Australia's population (48.6 per cent) is such that at least one of their parents was born abroad. Statistics show that more than one million (1,020,007) immigrants have immigrated to the country since the 2017 census.

Most of the foreign immigrants have come from India. Their number has increased by 2,17,963 people. The second-largest increase has been in the number of people of Nepalese origin. The number of Nepalese in Australia has more than doubled (123.7%) and since 2016, an additional 67,752 people have migrated from Nepal and settled in Australia.

According to the latest figures, the first figure in the number of people of foreign origin is people of English origin, whose population is 33 per cent. They are followed by people of Australian (29.9%), Irish (9.5%), Scottish (8.6%) and Chinese (5.5%) descent.

Indian population in Australia

The population of people of Indian origin living in Australia has increased by approximately 48 per cent since 2016. According to this census, 673,352 people were living in the country on June 1, 2021, which was 47.86 per cent more than the 2016 figure (4, 55, 389).

The number of people who speak a language other than English in their homes has increased by 7,92,062 and there are now more than 56 lakh people whose mother tongue is not English. About eight and a half lakh people are such that they cannot speak English at all.

Among non-English languages, Punjabi is in the top 5. Most non-English speakers speak Mandarin (2.7 per cent). It is followed by Arabic (1.4 per cent), Vietnamese (1.3 per cent), Cantonese (1.2 per cent), and then Punjabi (0.9 per cent).

The number of Hindus living in Australia is included in the top 5 religions. 2.7 per cent of the country's population is Hindu. But the number of people who do not believe in any religion is 38.9 per cent, which is the largest group. Catholic Christians are at number two with 20 per cent of the population. Anglicans are 9.8 per cent, while those who follow Islam make up 3.2 per cent of the population.

The number of people who identify with Sikhism in Australia is 210,400, which is 0.8 per cent. Victoria has the largest number of Sikhs at 91,745. Additionally, about 813,000 people in Australia identify with Islam. Its percentage of the national population has increased to 3.2%, up from 2.6% in the 2016 census.

Australian Bureau of Statistics ABS reports that the proportion of people who answered census questions increased from 91% in 2016 to 93% in 2021. Data will continue to be released through mid-2023.

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