The McCrindle Blog

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.

There are more generations today than ever before. In this video is a general overview of Gen X, Y, Z and generation Alpha. Mark McCrindle shares on how the global generations are defined, the influences these different cohorts have in our society, some demographic data.

For more videos click here to visit the McCrindle Research YouTube Channel.

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.

Following from our last McCrindle Research Future Forum Breakfast Event, we've put together an infographic which maps out our increasingly global market culture. Take a look below!

Our latest infographic is based on information we shared at our most recent Future Forum Breakfast event. (it's not too late to register for the final breakfast in November!) 

Here we explore the various research methodologies across time, categorised by the generations that they really took off. From the more classical approaches to research such as pen & paper surveys during the Builder generation, to apps, tablets and smart phone technologies in the current Gen Z and Alpha generations.

As researchers, we're excited about the research methods yet to be discovered...!

For a copy of the presentation from the most recent Future Forum Breakfast event, please click here.

Our Future Forum Breakfast Series #2 was a success this morning, as we heard from Mark McCrindle and Adam Penberthy, with a cup of fine tea in one hand and a selection of breakfast canapés in the other.

Mark McCrindle spoke about understanding the influences and trends which shape how we communicate and effectively engage 21st century consumers. 

One of the areas discussed was the growth and change in global connectivity and communications. Operator-assisted calls, telegrams, IDD calls, pagers and fax machines characterised communication for the Builders and Boomers. For Gen Xers, communication was done through other modes such as mobile phones (who can forget the Nokia brick phones), Hotmail, Netscape Navigator, backpacking etc. Moving along to the younger Gen Ys, communication has been executed through SMS text messaging, cheap and easy flights for students, collaborative information in Wikipedia and e-readers.

In more recent times, we've seen a wealth of emerging social media trends with the popular Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Sharing all things once deemed private, such as personal preferences, grievances and obsessions - platforms which allow a broadcasting of the individual to their peers and greater public, have been gaining momentum. These include sharing pages, pics and interests on Pinterest, to complaining about a hair in burger on Eatability, to checking in at Club "ihopethismakesmelookpopular" with 15 tagged friends. Peer-driven validation has always been a shared trait, and the emergent trends in communication have capitalised on this.

That was just one of the various topics discussed this morning. If you are interested in looking at Mark McCrindle's presentation slides, please download them here.

Our final Future Forum breakfast event of the year "Achieving cut-through: Communication tactics for message-saturated times" will be held on Friday the 2nd of November. Tickets are $79 each or $59 for 3+. Click here to register!

We hope to see you there!

The McCrindle Team.

In just 50 years Australia has been transformed through the transitioning generations. From the Builders Generation who literally and metaphorically built this nation after the austerity years post-depression and World War 2, to the Baby Boomers who redefined the cultural landscape, to Generation X who ushered in new technologies and workstyles, and now to Generations Y and Z who in this 21st Century are redefining lifestages and lifestyles.

In one generation we’ve gone from colour TV to internet TV, from roller skates to rip sticks, from top-down leadership to user-generated content and from long-term savers to lifestyle debt.

If you want a full overview of 50 years of change across 5 generations then this 1-pager is for you.
Click here to download the PDF. Enjoy!

And if you want to get a more in-depth overview, join us for our Future Forum Breakfast, 7am this Friday at the QVB Tea Room in Sydney. FREECALL 1800 TRENDS (1800 873 637) to register now.

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.

**UPDATE**

With the release of the ABS Australian Demographic Statistics results on Thursday 21st June,
the date in which Australia will hit 23 million is now estimated to be in August 2013

**ENDS**

At around 7am on Sunday 26 August 2012 Australia will hit its next population milestone of 23 million, social demographer Mark McCrindle has calculated. This new milestone comes less than a year after the world hit its latest mark of 7 billion, on 31 October 2011.

• In 1966, just one in 12 Australians were aged over 65 compared to 1 in 7 today. Indeed the number of centenarians has increased 23-fold, from 184 to 4248 in less than half a century.

• The population of Sydney today is equivalent to Australia's entire population a century ago.

• If the average growth rates that Australia has experienced over the last few years continue, then Australia will actually be approaching 40 million in 40 years.

• Sydney has the nation's highest population density of 380 people per square kilometre, which is the same as that of all the other Australian capital cities combined.

For more information, please see our latest Social AnalysisPDF!

Australia is known as a culturally rich nation, welcoming immigrants from all corners of the globe. At McCrindle, we thought it'd be interesting to have a deeper look, finding the average age of immigrants, filtered by their country of origin. 

What we found was that the average age of immigrants from different countries, certainly reflected trends in immigration in Australia in previous decades. 

It was apparent that key world events were often accounted for through increased numbers of immigrants from those particular countries. The global issues that have shaped Australia's cultural mix flow from some of the biggest events of the last six decades. Post-World War 2 migration and construction boom, unrest in former Yugoslavia, the Vietnam war, civil unrest in Sri Lanka, the pre-Hong Kong handover and recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Sudan. 

This was just one of the various findings Mark McCrindle discussed at our recent Future Forum Breakfast. Please click here to download the full slide presentation from the event.