Statistical snapshot of Australia

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released its annual report Australian Social Trends, 2007.

This publication provides a snapshot of life in Australia and how it is changing over time.

It highlighted that:

. Australia’s fertility rates are on the way back up from their historic low of in 2001. Since then Australia’s total fertility rate has increased, reaching 1.81 babies per woman in 2005 – the highest level recorded since 1995. Women aged 30 years and over and living in more advantaged areas are driving this increase.

. If current rates were to continue, 31% of men and 26% of women would never marry, while one-third of marriages which took place in 2000-02 could be expected to end in divorce, compared to 28% of marriages in 1985-87.

. The increased proportion of women working since the 1990s has contributed to increases in Australia’s labour force participation rate, up from 74% in 1990 to 76% in 2005 for people aged 15-64 years.

. Around 7.4 million Australian adults (54%) were overweight or obese in 2004-05. This was an increase of more than 2 million adults from 1995.

. The proportion of adults who were obese (up from 13% in 1995 to 18% in 2004-05) increased at a greater rate than the proportion of adults who were overweight (up from 33% in 1995 to 36% in 2004-05).

. While many goods and services have become more affordable – including motor vehicles, clothing and footwear and household appliances – others, such as education and hospital and medical services, have become less affordable because price rises for these services have outpaced increases in income and wealth.

. As our household income has increased so has household spending. Since 1985-86, real (ie adjusted for inflation) household final consumption expenditure per person has increased on average by 2% each year (from $17,500 in 1985-86 to $26,100 in 2005-06).