Who are we. Melbourne, as seen by the census

ONE in three of Melbourne's residents today was born in another country. Almost as many speak a foreign language at home. Nearly one in five is of Asian ancestry, mostly Chinese or Indian.

You see it every day on the streets, but the 2011 census has confirmed that Melbourne has become a different city different not only from what it used to be, but from the way the rest of Australia still is.

The census results show that more than just the ethnic make-up has changed. Migration has reinforced the city's traditional values, because the newcomers tend to be socially more conservative than those born here.

First, Melbourne has become much better educated: the census found 72 per cent of adult residents have completed year 11 at least, compared to just 60 per cent in the rest of Australia. The city has 18.6 per cent of Australia's population, yet almost a quarter of Australia's full-time university and TAFE students study here.

Second, Melbourne is relatively young. In the rest of Australia, the census found only 34 per cent of people are aged 20 to 44, with 40 per cent aged 45 and over. In Melbourne, by contrast, 38 per cent of people are aged 20 to 44, with just 37 per cent in the older group.

Third, despite what many would expect, Melbourne now leans to traditional family values. More residents over 25 are married here than in the rest of Australia. Fewer Melbourne people live in de facto relationships than elsewhere especially among under 25s.

That reflects the impact of the 433,628 immigrants who have settled in Melbourne in the past decade or so. One in four migrants makes Melbourne their home and they bring with them their homeland's values.

For example, the census found Melbourne has fewer divorces and marital breakups than the rest of Australia. Only 12.2 per cent of people over 25 in Melbourne were divorced or separated, but 13.7 per cent in the rest of Australia were.

Melbourne also has a higher rate of home ownership and, relative to housing prices, lower household debt. The census found the median weekly household income was almost $100 or 8 per cent higher than in the rest of Australia, but the median mortgage payment was virtually identical: $1810 a month in Melbourne, $1800 nationally.

While home ownership rates have fallen everywhere, 71 per cent of homes in Melbourne are owner-occupied, with just 28 per cent rented. In the rest of Australia, occupants own 68 percent and landlords 31 per cent. We re also cosier here. Melbourne

has more mediumdensity housing than average and slightly fewer children, and

45 per cent of homes have three or more occupants, compared to 41 per cent elsewhere.

But immigration has also brought diversity, especially in religion. Once, Melbourne was a

stronghold of Anglicans and Protestants. Now their numbers are fast-dwindling, as other religions advance.

The census found 35.4 per cent of people elsewhere in Australia are Protestants, but just 22.4 per cent in Melbourne. Only 10.8 per cent ofMelbourne people now identify as Anglicans, compared to 18.6 per cent in the rest of the country.

By contrast, Melbourne has more than its share of Catholics (27.2 per cent) and twice as

many Orthodox (5.8 per cent) as elsewhere. Almost half of all Australians who follow Judaism live here. And immigration has given it roughly 30 per cent of the nation s Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus.

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Census: How we're changing

MULTICULTURALISM has won the battle for Australia. The 2011 census reveals that Australia has become a melting pot of races, with more than one in four Australians having arrived here as migrants, while almost one in eight have Asian ancestry.

Less than 40 years after the White Australia policy was buried by the Whitlam government, the census results unveiled yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveal a land of many cultures, many ancestries and many religions.

In the decade to 2011, the growth in Australia's population was mostly among people of Asian ancestry. From just 982,519 in 2001, the number of Asian-Australians has swollen to 2.4 million in 2011 - or from 5.5 per cent of us to 12 per cent.

Even in Melbourne, where Italian and Greek migrants transformed the city in the post-war generation, more residents now speak Chinese or Indian languages at home than Greek or Italian - and almost one in five Melbourne residents is of Asian ancestry.

Diversity has won the battle for Australia. It has become a country where - for better, or for worse - more and more people are abandoning the old cultural norms. More parents and live-in partners are unmarried. Only 61 per cent of Australians now call themselves Christians, down from 68 per cent a decade ago.

For the first time, most Australians aged 25 to 34 are no longer Christians. Just 49 per cent identified with any Christian denomination - almost half of them Catholics - while 10 per cent declared themselves for Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam or Judaism, 3 per cent professed other beliefs, 29 per cent said they had no religion and 9 per cent gave no answer.

Catholicism is resisting the tide, but the main Protestant denominations are seeing their numbers erode away. In 1981, 26 per cent of Australians said they were Anglicans; in 2011, just 17 per cent were. The Catholics have lost some ground among the young, yet in sharp contrast to the Anglicans' fate, 25 per cent of Australians still call themselves Catholics.

Marriage too is losing ground. The census found fewer than half of Australians over the age of 15 are married. The Prime Minister and the First Bloke were among almost 1.5 million Australians living in a de facto relationship - almost 10 per cent of the adult population. More de facto relationships now include children. In a decade, the number of children living with de facto families has swelled almost 50 per cent to 526,000: one in 10 children.

Seven in every 10 children still grow up in traditional families, with two married parents. But with more than a million dependent children living with single parents, and half a million living with unmarried parents, the old social mores are now deeply fractured - particularly among those born in Australia, rather than overseas.

The census found 548,368 Australians now identify themselves as indigenous, up 34 per cent in a decade. Their median age is just 21, compared to 37 for non-indigenous Australians, which helps explain why so many are footballers.

In the decade, Australians have grown richer, but even more in debt. While the median household income rose 57 per cent since 2001, the median mortgage payment swelled by 108 per cent, and the median weekly rent was up 97 per cent. Only 33 per cent of us own our own home outright, down from 42 per cent.

At least those homes are now wired. Even before the NBN started reaching us, 72 per cent on census night last August had broadband at home, and 80 per cent had some form of internet connection. Would you believe that a decade ago, the 2001 census found only one in three Australian homes was connected to the net?

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Census: We've lost 300,000 Australians

AUSTRALIA lost almost 300,000 people on the way to last year's census. The census count suggests that Australia's population growth since 2006 was much smaller than previously estimated, especially in NSW, Victoria and Queensland.

In its first release of census-based data, the Bureau of Statistics has slashed its estimate of the population in mid-2011 from 22.6 million people to 22.3 million. The cut of 294,400 is equivalent to wiping away roughly a year's population growth.

Based on the census findings, the bureau estimates that at June 30 last year, Queensland had 106,000 fewer residents than earlier reported. NSW lost 91,000 people, Victoria 87,000, and South Australia 18,000.

By contrast, the census found slightly more people than expected living in WA, Tasmania and the territories.

Despite the downgrade, Victoria still added more people than any other state between 2006 and 2011, growing by 408,000 or 8 per cent. NSW added 395,400 people, growing just 5.8 per cent.

The bureau will spend the next year working out what was wrong with its earlier estimates. In an explanation yesterday, it gave several possible reasons, including errors in the 2006 census figures, or in the records of births and deaths, or in estimating the real size of net overseas migration.

Yesterday's figures are only preliminary, with final post-census results to be released in a year's time. The bureau next month will publish revised estimates of city and regional populations, which are likely to slash population estimates for the main cities, other than Perth.

Its updated figures show WA streaking ahead in population as well as economic growth. By the end of December, Australia's population had edged up to 22.5 million, growing by 1.4 per cent, but WA was growing at more than twice that rate.

Over 2011, WA outgrew Queensland in absolute numbers for the first time, its population growing by 67,400 or 2.9 per cent while Queensland grew 66,500 or 1.5 per cent.

Victoria again had the biggest growth in numbers, its population rising 75,400 or 1.4 per cent, while NSW grew by 71,000 or 1 per cent. On December 31 NSW had an estimated 7,250,000 people, and Victoria 5,575,000.

Net emigration from NSW to other states jumped sharply in 2011, from 11,240 to 16,100. Victoria again had slightly more people arriving than leaving, gaining a net 3330 from other states. But the main shifts were to Queensland, which gained a net 9600 people, and WA, which took in a record 8460 net arrivals from the rest of Australia.

The first census data also reveals that Australians are getting older, with the median Australian now aged 37.3 years, a sharp rise from 32.4 years in 1991. The proportion of Australians who have faced 65 candles on their birthday cake has grown from 11.3 per cent in 1991 to 13.8 per cent in 2011.

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