Factors affecting the structure of the Australian population, with special reference to the period 1921-1933

Abstract

The structure of the Australian population has been modified by demographic changes, by the effects of government policy in relation to population, and by social and economic conditions in Australia and in the countries from which Australia has drawn her migrant inflow. Though it is difficult to isolate the effects of anyone of these factors, the three being interrelated, the main emphasis has been placed on the demographic changes, but the effect of government policy has also been examined because of its direct bearing on the increase in population through immigration in much of the relevant period. In the early stages of its growth, the Australian population reflected the pioneering nature of the community: males outnumbered females, the birth rate was low, and the average age of the population was low. In the decade 1860 to 1870, the Australian-born outnumbered the Oversea-born for the first time, and since then natural increase has been of more importance than immigration as the source of population growth. In the period 1860 to 1940, though the rate of population growth was relatively high, the tendency was for the rate to decline. The fluctuating nature of the gain from immigration obscures the decline in natural increase over the period, which became especially marked during the economic depression in the late 1920's and early 1930's. This decline in natural increase was mainly due to the decline in fertility. Mortality, too, was decreasing, but not sufficiently to counteract the decline in fertility. The latter was associated with a changing pattern of family-building: women were marrying younger, the proportions of married women of reproductive age were increasing, but there was an increase in childless marriages and in the number of marriages with few children. Declining fertility was the principal cause of the reduction in the proportions in the younger age-groups of the total population, and in the proportions of females of reproductive age . In the period 1921 to 1933, the intensification of the decline in fertility can be seen in the more detailed analysis of that period than of the longer period. In particular, the reproductive histories of the cohorts of women married in the years 1920-21 to 1932-33, showed that a reduction was being effected in the size of the completed families of these women. The influence of government policy on immigration can be seen in the fact that between 1861 and 1930, assisted immigrants constituted 58 per cent of the net gain from immigration. In the period 1921 to 1933, state-aided immigration was linked to developmental planning, and, though the numbers of assisted immigrants were large, the scheme was unsuccessful in its achieving its initial object, which was to encourage land settlement. The direct effect of immigration in Australia has been to keep up the proportions in the young adult ages of the population, especially amongst males. Because of the lack of data, the indirect effects of immigration through its relation with natural increase can be measured only for the period 1921 to 1933, and even then not precisely. Attempts to estimate the fertility of migrant women who arrived in Australia in the intercensal period 1921 to 1933 suggest that in 1933 migrant women were less fertile than all women in Australia; if this is so, they tended to intensify the decline in Australian fertility in that period. Show more