The big shift: how priorities have changed

Work from home has been the ‘greatest single social impact of the pandemic’. Picture: iStock

The prospect, let alone the results, of Australia’s five-yearly censuses excites the demographic world: this is an opportunity to examine and to dissect how things have changed since the previous census.

But if I were to be brutally honest, the changes observed in previous censuses nearly always confirmed well-established trends that were driven by population (and cohort) growth that delivered ever more immigrants, workers and retirees.

The 2021 census is different. The results suggest that something has changed about the priorities of the Australian people. We are making choices that weren’t previously on the radar. It may have even changed the way we think about the future.

I have selected four proof points that I think demonstrate nothing less than a great Aussie switcheroo (in direction).

1 Work from home, the comet that landed

Work from home is a question that has been asked of the Australian workforce for 25 years. It was a nothing kind of question. Before the 2021 census, Australia’s work-from-home workforce was dominated by arty types such as author or screenwriter, or chief executive types working from their weekender.

In fact the proportion of the workforce working from home (including farmers) dropped from 5.6 per cent in 1996 to 4.4 per cent in 2011. There was a modest bump to 4.7 per cent in 2016, perhaps reflecting advances in internet access.

It is fair to say that work from home has been the greatest single social impact of the pandemic. At the time of the August 2021 census, with Sydney and Melbourne still in lockdown, the WFH component jumped to 21 per cent, a net increase of 16.3 percentage points. The question is what will this proportion settle back to?

I think it will settle at 15 per cent, which is 10 percentage points above the long-term trend. My reasoning is that Australians are driven by the pursuit of lifestyle. The removal of some commuting delivers knowledge-worker types (aka the so-called laptop class) a better quality of life.

The concept of having one in six workers working from home was never a proposition before the pandemic. But once it had landed – cometlike – it displaced the prevailing narrative of urban life. WFH posed a hitherto unasked question: is it absolutely necessary to commute to and from your workplace five days a week?

I say for a net extra 10 per cent of the workforce the long-term answer is no. The net effect of the WFH movement will not be known until June 2027 when the results of the 2026 census are released.

2 The fall of belief, a long-term trend

Australian censuses have long asked questions about religious affiliation, aka belief in a god of some sort. And in the early years of the commonwealth the answer was invariably yes, splitting contentiously into Catholic and Protestant.

Those answering no to the religious affiliation question have gained market share for the past half-century. (The question relates to all persons in a household including infants, whose affiliations are assigned by parents.)

Interestingly, across recent censuses the time in the life cycle when Australians are least likely to believe in a god (of any sort) is the age of 23. Thereafter religiosity gathers relevance. Perhaps this is due to the arrival of children.

The no-religion cohort gathered a few percentage points in market share with each census in the late 20th century. Some have argued that changes to how the question was framed influenced the results. But the long-term trend has been away from Christianity and towards “other religions” and “no religion”.

The recent drop in belief has been in effect since 2011 and may reflect generational change. Australia’s greatest believer cohort remembered the privations of the Depression and the effects of both world wars and their aftermaths. Calamity (repeated) at this scale supports the view that surely the afterlife must be better, safer, than this life.

In either case the evidence is that Australians generally and at scale are relinquishing values and thinking that had prevailed for decades. I am inclined to think this diminution will plateau by the next census. The age-based relevance of religiosity, plus uncertainties about Australia’s future, could inspire a market for spirituality.

3 The home ownership hockey-stick uptick

The proportion of the Australian population living in a dwelling that is owned outright or with a mortgage had been in long-term decline. This proportion was as high as 65 per cent in 2006 before dropping to 61 per cent a decade later.

The aspiration to home ownership reflected a cultural truth about pre-pandemic Australians. Housing was expensive and many young adults as well as divorcees, expats, corporate types and even some families wanted the freedom (and CBD accessibility) of living in an inner-city apartment building. As a consequence the proportion of Australians renting increased.

Other renters locked out of the home ownership market chose accommodation in outer suburbia and across the regions.

And because house prices hadn’t fallen at the time of the August 2021 census it could have been expected that the proportion of the Australian population living in an owned dwelling might have fallen further to, say, 59 per cent.

But the recent census showed this proportion actually jumped to 63 per cent, or four percentage points above trend. This equates to roughly one million more Australians now living in owned accommodation. Something arrived with the pandemic to knock the long-term rental trend off its trajectory.

Some say this is a direct consequence of the record low interest rates that prevailed at that time. My view is this is undoubtedly a factor, but there is something else that is driving this big shift.

It is the transitioning of the millennial generation from mid to late 30s across the past five years or so. By this time in the life cycle Australians are usually partnered up, have one or two kids, are approaching the peak of their income-earning potential and begin to seek out greater dwelling security. It may be that millennials are on the move to the suburbs, to regional centres or indeed to “owned accommodation” in the inner city. Here is an inflection point driven by transition to the family stage of the life cycle by the children of the baby-boomer generation.

This big shift to home ownership also shows there is a large number of Australians whose current accommodation was bought at a time of low interest rates.

4 Change of priorities and behaviour, care and shopping

The Australian Bureau of Statistics identifies more than 1300 jobs that drive the Australian economy. There has been an almighty shift in the jobs that can be described as fastest growing between 2011-16 and 2016-21. It’s almost as if during the past five years the entire workforce has bent in a different direction.

Across the five years to 2016, which included the peak of the mine-construction boom, and before our recent troubles with a key trading partner, most growth in a single job in Australia was sales assistant (general) (also known as shop assistant), up 69,095 jobs.

Half a decade later, across the five years to 2021 the fastest growing job is now aged or disabled carer, up 95,212 jobs. In fact the number of shop assistants contracted during this period. Now, was that because of lockdowns or has consumer behaviour changed? I say it’s a bit of both.

In the early part of last decade, jobs such as chef, kitchenhand and barista ranked within the top-10 fastest growing (out of 1300 in total) reflecting a culture focused on lifestyle and eating out.

The evidence is that we left all that behind: there is no mad scramble for cafe workers. Or if there is, it is superseded by the requirement for disability carers and childcare workers.

The skyrocketing of aged or disability carer from a five-year intercensal growth rate of 24,000 to 95,000 reflects the impact of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Our priorities have changed. We’re less focused on cafes and baristas; we’re more focused on caring for those in genuine need.

In many respects this big shift is evidence of an admirable change in values and one that cannot have been easy to impose upon a lifestyle-inclined people.

But there is more to the top-10 job-shift ranking between the censuses. The rise of storeperson, delivery driver and software engineer reflect a fundamental shift in consumer behaviour.

These surging jobs enable online shopping by the creation of apps and by the distribution of goods from warehouses in logistics centres direct to the family home.

5 Conclusion: we’re capable of profound change

What emerges from the 2021 census, I think, is evidence of a people prepared to change, to adapt to prevailing circumstances and to then cherrypick those learnt behaviours and skills that deliver a better lifestyle.

Having greater control over where and how workplace value is delivered is an empowerment of the workforce. Being able to buy product online was, pre-pandemic, the preserve of the digitally enabled. Now it seems everyone’s doing it. The home, the family, very much appear to be on the ascendancy; this is different from the lifestyle that prevailed a decade ago. Back then it was all about being out and about, and deferentially commuting from suburbia to the CBD.

Our values have shifted. A new generation is ascendant. New ways of delivering a better lifestyle have been learnt. We’re navigating a skills shortage. We’re rethinking energy and defence.

The 2021 census contains evidence of how the Australian people have adapted to changed circumstances. And in this sense it gives great confidence in the future. Things may not unfold as we had thought, but when pressed we can and do adapt to whatever is thrown at us.

Bernard Salt is executive director of The Demographics Group. Research and graphics by Hari Hara Priya Kannan.