The McCrindle Blog

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. 

Last month we released a little infographic outlining the trends in motherhood and baby names. It included some very interesting trends including variations in spelling (as you will see in the list below), but we only included the top ten Aussie baby names from 2011 in the infographic.

Here's a list of the top twenty girls and boys names, and you can download the top 100 in PDF format below the table.

For the full list download Australia's Top 100 Baby Names  

In this recent article, Mark McCrindle gives insight into how Aussie households are travelling financially. We thought we'd unpack this a bit further in this blog post. Stay posted for an upcoming social analysis report on all this and more!

Worsening income and wealth equality

The Gini Coefficient which measures the distribution of income (where 0 = perfect equality, everyone earning the same amount, and 1 = total inequality, with one person earning all) has been steadily getting worse over the past decade. It has significantly increased since 1995 when it was 0.296 compared to 0.328 currently. This is higher than the EU average of 0.30 but far better than the US (0.45).

Income by household type

When looking at household type, a lone-person aged over 65 has the smallest household disposable annual income of $24,596, followed by a one-parent family with dependent children at $28,444. 

The households with the highest annual disposable incomes are the couple-only household ($60,424) the couple with non-dependent (older) children ($51,740) and the couple with children spanning the dependent and non-dependent age groups ($46,592). Couples with young families (dependent children aged under 5) have a household income of $42,744 – which is below the national average- and this coming at the life stage where expenses are growing!

The poverty line in 2012

The Henderson Poverty Line was calculated in 1973 as $62.70 and defined as the weekly household disposable income required to meet the basic needs of the average family (two adults and two dependent children). The Melbourne Institute have adjusted this for inflation and calculated it to be $500 in today’s terms.

Based on the latest ABS Household Disposable Income data, there are 5,913,400 Australians living in households with a weekly disposable income below $500 which is more than 1 in 4 Australians. However, not all of these are family households.  The lowest quintile of Australian households (1.7 million) have an average weekly household disposable income of $314 – well below the 2012 Henderson Poverty Line figure ($500). Of these, 53.6% are family households with dependent children and so the total number of Australians living in families with dependent children in this lowest income quintile is 1,906,159.

Ongoing impacts of the downturn

Stage 1: Shopping Change

Commenced: 2008-2009

What we buy: shift to private labels, brand substituting, downgrading to lower specifications, cutting back on some luxuries.

Where we buy: growth in online purchasing, shift to cheaper retailers, bulk purchasing, price comparing, seeking out specials

When we buy: delaying purchasing, shopping on sales, making goods last longer, coupon and voucher use.

Stage 2: Lifestyle change

Commenced: 2009-2010

Cancelling outsourced services. Trading back time for money- home cleaning, lawn maintenance, car washing- back to DIY.

Behavioural shifts: byo lunch to work, cancelling memberships (e.g. gym, self storage, subscriptions, children’s extra-curricular activities, clubs)

Delaying or substituting purchases: cutting back or changing holiday destinations, delaying major spending like renovations, car upgrade, replacing whitegoods etc.

Stage 3: Structural change

Commenced: 2011-2012

Significant lifestyle changes, downsizing home, selling second car, getting second job, moving to two-income household, moving children from private schooling, altering retirement destination and timing.

Stage 4: Financial survival mode

The ABS data shows that the number of households defined by being in financial stress has been increasing over the past decade. Currently 1 in 7 households are unable to raise $2000 within a week if something critical emerged. 1 in 8 households have been financially unable to pay a gas/electricity/phone bill on time in the last year- this is more than 1.1 million households.

20% of low economic resource households have sought to borrow money from family or friends in the past year, 1 in 13 households nationally also fall in to this category- more than 711,000 households. 1 in 10 low resource households have gone without meals for financial reasons in the last year ( 3% of all households have done this), and 1 in 10 have sought assistance from welfare organisations (2.8% of all households).

Interstate Population Flows

The map below shows the the movement of Australians as they move interstate. This shows a trend to the north (Queensland) and towards the west (Western Australia).

Mark McCrindle appeared on The Today Show this morning to give a quick snapshot of the figures shown in these infographics. Take a look-see to hear him explain the numbers a little more.

Watch Mark in more media segments on our Media page, or on our YouTube channel.

With the release of the Census results today, we've put together a 3 part infographic series on Australia's population.

Population growth rate by state

Australia's national growth rate is currently at 1.4%. The table and infographic map below breaks this down to show how each state is faring. WA is Australia's fastest growing state, growing at more than twice the national growth rate, twice the rate of Victoria and almost three times that of NSW.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics have just released the 2011 Australian Census results, and to celebrate, we're releasing a three-part infographic based on the nation's population growth.

Australian Census Results

Our first infographic shows Australia's total population (22,482,200), our national growth rate (1.4% [The global growth rate is 1.1%]), and our national median age (37.3).

Stay tuned for parts II and III!

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With the release of the latest Australian Census of Population Statistics now out, it's a great time to analyse our national data!

Australia is no longer just "down under" and insignificant in size. In fact at 23 million (estimated August 2013), we're a mid-sized nation and we're punching above our weight on the international stage. And it's no longer just on the sporting stage, from our world-beating economy to our world-class education, from our G20 membership to our business influence in the region, Australia at 23 million has significant international leverage. Here's a snapshot... 

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As social researchers at McCrindle Research we love to track not only demographic trends, but also the mood of the nation and what Australians care about.

One interesting exercise to monitor this is to find out what Aussies are looking for on Google. This also uncovers some interesting perspectives state by state...and indeed validates a few stereotypes. We like to think of this as a form of qualitative research on a larger scale. 

Join McCrindle Research as we track a week of Googling in Australia!

Top three trends nationwide

1. It wouldn’t be Jubilee week without Queen Elizabeth slipping into the top ten, while obviously not ranking as highly as the UK which achieved four trending search terms for the Queen in the top ten... compared to other English speaking nations in the Commonwealth (Canada, South Africa and New Zealand) we love our royalty, with none of these countries featuring any jubilee-related search terms.

2. It seems Aussies are a nation of tech-heads, with three smart phone searches currently trending. We seem to love our technology even more than our cultural friends in the USA and the UK, with neither of these seeing a tech-trend in the past week.

3. It’s no surprise that we’re a sporty crew and our search terms reflect this, with AFL, more AFL and the tennis coming up trumps. State by state analysis shows the heartlands of several sports, for example; Victorians have four trending AFL searches, compared to just one in NSW, QLD and WA!  In Adelaide of course the South Australian National Football League is popular, while in Tassie the National Basketball Association ranked well! 

Trends across the states

While the search terms were similar across all the states, there were a couple of interesting searches that reveal differences across the nation. 

• In NSW the ASX slipped in, showing the strong influence of the financial sector in this state.

• Queenslanders have always had a strong affinity with Credit Unions and interestingly CUA was trending this week as one of their top searches.

• Perhaps it’s been raining in WA, as a night in with a movie and a pizza seemed to be on the cards for many west Australians (as well as the weather report!), with dominos, BOM and Game of Thrones all trending in this state. 

Movies and entertainment

It’s no surprise that with winter on its way, many Australians seem to be off to the movies...indeed the new science fiction movie Prometheus is rating highly across the globe at the moment. Interestingly, different movie theatres are trending in different states, with Hoyts rating well in WA, Event cinemas in QLD and the Dendy in the ACT where arty movies rate well, and indeed with all those embassies foreign films are a must!

Top 10 searches across the states

Thanks for checking out McCrindle Research’s analysis of Google trends. We’ll continue to keep an eye on these so stay tuned to see if anything interesting pops up!

The Queen's Jubilee year celebrations give an excellent opportunity to analyse how Australia has changed during the sixty year reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The infographic below shows the extent of demographic change in Australia since 1952. Not only has our population changed, but it has grown dramatically, and as you can see, far faster than comparable countries such as the United Kingdom.

So settle back with a cup of Twinings' finest and a shortbread, and enjoy this demographic snapshot!

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**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!