Pandemic deals blow to Australia’s migrant population

Australia’s migrant population has plunged for the first time in two decades as the pandemic kept international borders shut, stopping the movement of people.

Australia has experienced its first plunge in its migrant population for 20 years after the pandemic played havoc with the global movement of people, says a new report.

Those born in England remained the nation’s No.1 migrant community in 2021 with 967,390 people, about 13,000 fewer than the previous year.

Next were those born in India with 710,380 people (down 13,000), followed by China at 595,630 (down 52,000).

The Australian Bureau of Statistics report, Australia’s Population by Country of Birth, revealed that as of June 30, 2021, 7.5 million Australians were born overseas, down from 7.7 million a year earlier.

Head of ABS migration statistics Jenny Dobak said despite the decrease in the overseas-born cohort, Australia’s population increased by 45,000 in 2020-21 due to birth numbers.

“The decrease reflected reduced overseas migration in and out of Australia, given the Covid-19 travel restrictions,” Ms Dobak said.

“The travel and migration intentions of many people changed due to the pandemic, including those migrating to work or study.

“In the first year of the pandemic there were fewer people born overseas migrating to Australia, as well as fewer people born in Australia departing to live overseas.”

Net overseas migration to Australia is expected to increase steadily over the next few years. Picture: David Geraghty

Last year, 29.1 per cent of Australia’s population was born overseas. In 2020 the country ranked ninth internationally for the total number of migrants it had.

Among other migrant groups, in 2021 there were 560,000 New Zealand-born people living in Australia, 311,000 Philippines-born, 268,000 Vietnamese, 202,000 South Africans and 172,000 Malaysians.

The number of Scottish-born migrants was 130,000, down by 11,000 since 2011. Other traditional post-war migrant groups also experienced big population drops across the decade such as the Italian-born (down 30,000 to 171,500), German-born (down 18,000 to 108,000) and Greek-born (down 21,000 to 100,650).

With borders open, net overseas migration to Australia is expected to rise steadily over the next few years with the federal government forecasting about 230,000 migrants a year – akin to pre-pandemic levels – by 2025.

Big business groups, including the property and development lobby, want migrant intakes ramped up to cover the shortfall in population growth caused by the pandemic.

But Jenny Goldie, national president of environmental group Sustainable Population Australia, said population growth demanded ever more resources and produced waste such as greenhouse gases.

“We might have some hope of achieving our emission reduction targets if we did not have a constantly growing population,” she said, describing pre-pandemic levels of immigration as “excessive”.