The geography and demography of Indigenous migration: Insights for policy and planning

Abstract

One of the more consistent findings of census-based analysis is that nationally, Indigenous Australians change their place of usual residence more often than the non-Indigenous population. Between 2001 and 2006, 46.5 per cent of the Indigenous population changed their place of usual residence, compared to 43.1 per cent for the non-Indigenous population. Population movement can have significant impacts on the ability of all levels of government to design forward-looking policy at a local level that takes into account the share of the population that identifies as being Indigenous. The aim of this paper is to consider a number of related aspects of Indigenous migration using results from the 2006 Census of Population and Housing. This includes the propensity to move, population redistribution, migration patterns and flows, urbanisation and intra-urban migration.