Who are Australia’s children?

Age

2.2 Children make up a substantial section of the Australian community. In the latest census, the ABS counted more than 4.8 million children aged 0 to 18 living in Australia on 6 August 1996.^[1]

Table 2.1 Australia’s children by age group^[2]

2.3 The proportion of children in Australia’s population has been slowly declining, from 36% in 1925 to 28% in 1996.^[3] The ABS estimates that approximately 5 million children under 18 years of age will be living in Australia by the year 2025.^[4]

Sex

2.4 Although for the Australian population as a whole there are slightly more females than males,^[5] the reverse is true for Australia’s children. On census night 1996, the ABS counted approximately 2.48 million boys and 2.36 million girls.^[6] There were slightly more boys than girls in each age group.^[7]

Aboriginality and ethnicity

2.5 Indigenous children made up around 3.5% of all Australian children counted in the 1996 census.^[8] By contrast, as Indigenous people are on average younger that non-Indigenous people, as a whole they made up only 2.0% of the total Australian population.^[9] On census night in 1996, almost half (48%) of all people who identified themselves as Indigenous were children,^[10] and almost 13% of Indigenous people counted were aged under 5.^[11]

Table 2.2 Indigenous populations^[12]

2.6 In addition to Indigenous cultures, Australia’s children come from close to two hundred different ethnic groups. Many children in Australia are from non-English speaking backgrounds. This means that they were born in countries where English is not the primary language or have at least one parent born in a country where English is not the primary language, regardless of the child’s own country of birth.

2.7 The 1996 census found that almost 7.6% (365 847) of all Australian children were born overseas,^[13] compared to 26.1% of the total Australian population.^[14] The largest percentage of children born overseas were born in a non-English speaking country (66%), but the United Kingdom and New Zealand were the most common country of birth for all overseas-born children.^[15] The most common countries of birth for children born in non-English speaking countries were Vietnam, the Philippines, Hong Kong and China.

Table 2.3 Most common overseas birthplaces of children in Australia^[16]

2.8 The 1996 census also found that approximately 22% of all children counted in Australia had at least one parent born in a non-English speaking country.^[17] As a result, many children in Australia speak a language other than English at home. The 1996 census counted 633 352 children (13.1% of all children counted in Australia) who spoke a language other than English at home.^[18] Approximately 17% of these children (107 267) were identified as speaking English ‘not well’ or ‘not at all’.^[19]

Table 2.4 Most common language spoken at home by children in Australia^[20]

Children with disabilities

2.9 According to the latest ABS disability survey in 1993, approximately 267 600 children aged 0 to 14 were identified as having a disability.^[21] Of these children, 223 200 were identified as having a handicap.^[22] The most common dis-abling conditions for children aged 5 to 14 were intellectual and mental disorders (2.3% of the child population of that age suffered from this disability) and respiratory diseases (2.2% of the child population of that age suffered from this disability).^[23]