On or around 10 August 2021, over 25 million people in Australia completed the Population and Housing Census led by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The initial results of that Census relating to key population data were released on 28 June 2022. Below is a picture of the data relating to the Macedonian community in Australia, the United Macedonian Diaspora announced the following:
1. Country of birth
For the first time, the data showed that more than half of all Australians (51.5%) were born overseas or had a parent born overseas.
The data from the Census show that a total of 41,786 people are registered as born in Macedonia. About 93% of those people are Australian citizens and about 76% are aged 50 and over.
These numbers have marginally increased since the last Australian census in 2016, where a total of 38,985 people reported being born in Macedonia.
2. Origin
Since the last Census in 2016 (98,441), there has been an increase of over 13% in the number of people who identify themselves as having Macedonian origin.
About 111,352 people identify with Macedonian ancestry, with 49,429 (44.4%) of those people living in Victoria and 43,775 (39.3%) living in New South Wales.
3. Language spoken at home
The data shows that Australia continues to be a culturally and linguistically diverse country that has collected information on over 250 ethnicities and 350 languages spoken in Australia.
A total of 66,173 people speak the Macedonian language at home.
This figure shows a slight increase on the data from the 2016 Census, where it was reported that 66,019 people spoke Macedonian at home.
Macedonian is the most spoken Eastern European language in Australian homes.
For more information, explore the Census data at: www.abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data.
