The McCrindle Blog

The 2002 Federal Budget, delivered by Treasurer Peter Costello introduced the baby bonus scheme, aimed to lighten the financial load for new parents. The Baby Bonus Scheme initially granted $2,500 in tax cuts per year for parents of newborns, an amount which was amended to lump-sum payments of $3,000 from 1 July 2004 and progressively rising to its current amount of $5,000 (now paid in 13 instalments).

Baby bonus stimulates birth rate

The baby bonus certainly had an influence on the birth rate, which increased significantly, hitting a peak of 2.0 in 2008. Births continued to grow, and 2011 saw Australian births exceed 300,000 (301,617), a record that is being broken year on year. In fact, we are amidst a bigger baby boom than even the original post-WWII baby boom incurred, which resulted in Australia’s largest-ever generation – the Baby Boomers.

The Baby Bonuses (the 3.1 million babies born since the introduction of the Baby Bonus Scheme in 2012) are Australia’s first generation paid simply for being born.

The Baby Bonus and the resulting surge in births over the last decade has eased the peak of the ageing population challenge and added to our population growth and the economic stimulus that has flowed from this.

Misconceptions on first-time mums

There are, however, some misconceptions about the baby bonus and the births that it facilitated.

When the 2002 Baby Bonus was first introduced, it was predicted by some that the incentive would encourage an increase in teenage, single and young mums. However, the ABS data shows that the fertility rate for mums aged between 16 and 19 has actually declined over the last decade. In fact, the fertility rate for teenagers has been declining for more than three decades now – for example, the fertility rate of sixteen year old women has decreased 55% since 1982.

The trend over the last decade has been increasing fertility rate amongst older women. Over the last decade, the fertility rate of women aged 35-39 has been greater than that of women in their early twenties. The fertility rate of a 32 year old woman is ten times greater than that of a 17 year old!

Baby bonus dissolution

On 1 March 2014, when the Baby Bonus Scheme is finally put to bed after more than 13 years and replaced changes to Family Tax Benefit Schedule A, it will have left a legacy in terms of the generation it created. The economic impact and productivity of the Baby Bonus Generation will shape this nation over the century ahead.

With just over 9 months to go until its dissolution, there’s still time for prospective parents to gain a benefit from the Baby Bonus Scheme. We may well see a final surge of births that end this legacy of Australia’s baby bonus and the Baby Bonus Generation.

Sources: ABS Cat 3301.0 – Births, Australia, 2011, and McCrindle Research, 2013

Australia’s ageing continues

In just two decades Australia’s median age has increased nearly 5 years (from 32.7 to 37.5 today). In the last 5 years the proportion of our population aged under 20 has declined by a percentage point to be just 1 in 4 Australians (25%) while the proportion aged over 60 has increased by a similar amount to be 1 in 5 (20%). Based on these current demographic trends, by 2028, for the first time in Australia’s history there will be more people aged over 60 than aged under 20.

Click here to download this report as a PDF.

A good news story

The ageing of our population is of course a good news story. The Standardised Death Rate (deaths per 1,000 population) continues to fall (to 5.59- half that of births) while life expectancy continues to rise.

When Australia’s Age Pension was introduced in 1909, life expectancy at birth was 57 while today it exceeds 80. While the accessibility age of 65 for males has not changed in a century, longevity certainly has. In fact so dramatic has been the increase in life expectancy, that averaged across males and females, Australians have gained 25 years of life expectancy in the last 100 years. Or 3 months of life every 12 months of time!

Downagers: redefining the older life stages

Today’s Baby Boomers are the ultimate downagers, redefining lifestages, and reinventing retirement. They have adult children at home longer, they’re buying and selling property later in life, and remaining active in the workforce later than ever before. This is a response to the improved life and health realities. In fact based on years of life expectancy, a 65 year old today is the equivalent of a 54 year old in 1950. It is therefore of little surprise that Australians are younger longer and working later.

Older workers: technical, professional and entrepreneurial

Australia’s workers aged 65 and older currently comprise 3.4% of Australia’s total workforce (393,000 out of 11, 589, 000). The top two job categories of older Australians where more than 1 in 5 are aged 65 or over are professionals (21.4%) and managers (20.4%).

Of Australians 65 and over currently in the workforce, 72% are employees, 23% have their own business, 4% are employers, and 1% are contributing family workers.

Older Australians work the longest hours employed as managers in numerous industries (35 hours per week) and the least hours when employed in the community and personal service work industry (18 hours).

Across all of the industries, the average Australian worker aged 65 and older works 27 hours per week as an employee, 36 hours per week as an employer, 26 hours per week as a business owner, and 18 hours per week as a contributing family worker. Older workers are looking for great flexibility in their working hours and are increasingly not working full-time.

41% of Australians aged 65 and older who work as managers run their own business. This is the highest rate of self-employment across the major industries for this age group. Other industries that display a high percentage of older Australians running their own businesses are technicians and trade workers (27%), labourers (26%) and business services (20%).

As the Director of McCrindle Research, Mark McCrindle headed up the McCrindle Baynes Village Community Report – the largest study into retirement village residents ever conducted in Australia. The project involved a 57 question pen and paper survey, deployed to 181 villages managed by 7 operators. It received over 10,000 completed surveys, representing almost 1 in 10 village residents Australia-wide.

Want to know more?

Click here to download our Speaking and Research Pack for the Retirement and Aged Care Sectors.

Click here to read more about our Speaking services.

Seven years ago McCrindle Research began in a spare room of Mark and Ruth McCrindle’s house. With a psychology background, market research experience, and a passion to conduct world class research, Mark began the McCrindle Research story. 

Since then we’ve been commissioned by scores of clients, completed hundreds of projects, interviewed thousands of people, analysed hundreds of thousands of online survey responses, and interpreted millions of data points for our demographic summaries. Our research has been disseminated through hundreds of media articles, more than 10,000 of Mark’s books, and more than 100,000 of our acclaimed A5 population maps.

As Australia’s leading data visualisation researchers, our infographics, slide decks, whitepapers and research summaries have been meeting quite a need for world class research and analysis communicated in relevant, innovative ways. Our analytics tells us that they’ve been getting thousands of views and downloads each day. 

So if you are looking to analyse your market, identify consumer segments, understand the demographics, engage with diverse generations, or respond to the emerging trends, then check out our research packs, Mark’s speaking pack or get in contact for a quote. Through commissioned research projects, focus groups and online surveys, demographic reports, strategic workshops, and keynote presentations, we help organisations know the times.

Australia is just 2 weeks away from hitting its next population milestone of 23 million, so how does Australia’s 23 million people across almost 9 million households, living in almost 7,000 unique suburbs, towns and localities look?

Here’s our acclaimed Australia Street demographic video.

And while we’re at it, here’s a video snapshot of the changing generations and an overview of the emerging trends to help you know the times.

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If Australia were a street of 100 households, what would it look like? What kind of dwellings are on Australia Street, and how many vehicles per household are there? What about population, employment, religion, education, births, deaths and marriages? What about pet ownership?

All these statistics and more are included in this little animation McCrindle Research put together! Enjoy!

We're sure you're now asking how you can get your hands on all of all these stats! Last Monday we shared our newest demographic infographic in a blog post here, which you can check out.

Otherwise, you can click here to download the Australia Street PDF, or...
Click here to download a high resolution image of the Australia Street infographic.

Finally, you can hear the full analysis of all the information included in Australia Street and more this Friday at our Australian Communities Forum event. Visit the website for more information or to register.

A post by Mark McCrindle.

With living costs rising, housing affordability challenges, and young Australians starting their earning years later in life after earning a degree, and a study debt, the costs of raising children is a key part of the discussion couples are having when thinking about starting a family.   

However if couples analysed the total cost of raising children in Australia, this nation may well be childless because the final figure is significant. So what’s the number? The cost of raising one child to the point of parental independence (age 24 in Australia) is $597,949 - more than the cost of the just-released Ferrari at $590,000. 

And the cost of raising the average family size (2.7 children) to the age of leaving home for the final time (they're not called the boomerang kids for nothing!) now exceeds 1 million dollars ($1,151,304 to be exact).   While of course parents have no regrets and would never wish to have swapped their house full of children for a garage full of Ferraris, the costs and comparisons do highlight the challenges for parents today, and the importance of any financial benefits and support they receive.

Here are the costs to raise the average family (2.7 kids) to independence (24) today per category. Note: the costs (eg housing) are not the total household costs but only the amount apportioned to the children.

From the Sandwich Generation to the Boomerang Kids, McCrindle Research have been busy identifying and labelling some emerging social trends. The Baby Boomers have been given many labels in their lives, buy as they move through mid-life, many have become sandwiched between their stay-at-home adult children and their ageing parents. Even for Boomers whose children, grandchildren or elderly parents are living separately from them, they're not necessarily independent from them. Australia's Boomers have become our nation's carers - financially, practically, and emotionally.

Read more about The Sandwich Generation in this SMH article.

Here's a new infographic!

More than half of Australia's growth can be attributed to net overseas migration, which is filling our skills shortages. The United Kingdom and New Zealand dominate our migrant lists, but we are culturally diverse.

We're also growing through natural increase, with our nation going through a record baby boom and increased longevity rates. We're seeing changes in household types, we have an ageing population, but we're growing.

And it's easy to see why... because while Australia comes 52nd in population and 6th in land mass, it's the best place to live!! :) 

Keep scrolling for the eye candy...

All our infographics can be found on our visual.ly account 

It's World Population Day and Australia has staked its claim as one of the world's fastest growing nations. The recently released 2011 census data has revealed that the nation will hit 23 million around mid-2013, fuelled by our above-average growth rate of 1.4%. Why is Australia growing so quickly? McCrindle Research has found the top three drivers of our population growth.

1. Immigration

More than half (54%) of our population growth is due to net overseas migration, and permanent arrivals (425,000) by far outweigh permanent departures (249,500). Skilled immigration is the biggest contributor, with 63% of arrivals targeted to fill the current skills shortage.

A further 30% of arrivals come on family visas, while just 7% come under humanitarian visa. Our motherland is the biggest contributor to immigration growth, with 20% of migrants coming from the UK. A further 9% come from New Zealand, 6% from China and 6% from India.

2. Baby Boom

Australia is in the midst of one of the biggest baby booms in our history, with natural increases making up 46% of population growth.

In 2011 we saw 296,700 births compared to 147,000 deaths. The original Baby Boom peaked at 250,000 annual births.

Currently in Australia there are 3.58 million households with children, and 5,1 million children under 18.

3. Longevity

Australia's population is ageing and by 2050 23% of Aussies will be over 65. In just fifty years we have seen a radical shift. In 1961, 0% of the population was under 15, while today less than 19% are. In contrast, the cohort of those over 65 has risen from 8% to 14%, and the number of centurions has increased 23-fold, from 184 to 4,248 in less than half a century!

Where we stand

We've doubled with the world!

In 1966, the world's population was just 3.5 billion, while Australia's was 11.5 million. In less than half a century this number has doubled, with the world over 7 billion, and Australia's due to hit 23 million next year.

We've grown almost five fold over a century and the population of Sydney today is equal to that of the whole nation in 1912. From an international perspective, we are growing strongly with our population expanding faster (1.4%) than the world's growth rate of 1.1%.

Growing, but a lot of ground to cover before we catch up!

Australia is ranked 52nd out of 242 countries in terms of our population, placing us in the top 25% of the world. However, while 23 million seems like an incredible number, compared to other countries we are dragging the chain. The UK for example, hit 23 million in 1830, while the USA joined the club in 1850.

If Australia was a city we'd struggle for the 7th spot, dragging behind Tokyo, Guangzhou, Jakarta, Seoul, Shanghai and Mexico City. The city of Tokyo alone exceeds our entire national population by more than 10 million residents!

Download the Social Analysis as a PDF here: World Population Day  

Mark McCrindle appeared on Channel Nine's A Current Affair last Friday to share about a noticeable trend where Baby Boomers are currently in a life-stage sandwiched between their adult children as well as their senior parents living at home. These are the Sandwich Generation.

For more information check out the segment in the video below.