Big Australia? It depends on migration, with projections population will hit 40m by 2071

Just how many people will be living in Australia in 2071? An ABS study shows it could be anywhere from 34 million to 46 million, depending largely on migration.

Australia’s population growth depends largely on the intake of migrants, the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics report finds.

Australia’s population will be nudging 40 million people by 2071 based on mid-range estimates of the nation’s fertility and net overseas migration, the Australian Bureau of Statistics says.

But it could be as high as 46 million if top-end fertility and net migration rates are reached, or as low as 34 million using assumptions at the other end of the scale, the ABS says.

The data, contained in the ABS five-yearly Population Projections report, also reveals the rapid ageing of the nation’s population, which it projects will move from 38.5 years currently to between 43.8 and 47.6 years by 2071.

And it forecasts Melbourne to be the nation’s largest city by then, with a protected population of between 6.5 million and 10 million, surpassing Sydney sometime in the 2030s or early 2040s.

The ABS population data comes amid heated debate about the appropriate settings for Australia’s net overseas migration rate, with questions being raised about its impact on housing affordability and a lack of public services available to cater for the growing population.

A post-Covid surge in net migration, driven by returning international students, has seen an estimated annual migration intake this year of around 500,000 people.

After receiving a review of Australia’s migration system in March, a report led by former Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson, the Albanese government is expected to unveil its migration strategy in the coming weeks.

The ABS report projects the current 10-year average annual growth rate of 1.4 per cent slowing significantly over the next five decades to an average of between 0.2 and 0.9 per cent.

The population projection data is based high, medium or low assumptions for fertility and net overseas migration.

The fertility rates range between 1.45 and 1.75 births per women, with the recent average between 2020-2022 at 1.64. The ABS data projects that from 2053 the “natural increase” in the population will become negative, with more deaths than births.

Net overseas migration, a more volatile metric given it is subject to government policy, ranges between the low assumption of 175,000 a year to 275,000 a year.