For the demographically inclined, this feels like Christmas

New normal: the census data will show how prevalent #WFH has become

Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Well, it may not be Christmas but it might as well be, because for the demographically inclined the first tranche of the 2021 census results is due to be released next month. Hip hip hooray! And, just like Christmas, there’s great anticipation about what presents might be unwrapped. What will the data say? How have we changed? All will be revealed.

Actually, not all will be revealed at first. The results will be delivered in three batches, beginning with the basics and ending with complex data on topics such as commuting to work, information that is essential for public transport and motorway investment.

But perhaps the most important figure to be revealed will be the proportion of workers who are now doing so from home. In every census since 1996, this proportion has remained steady at five per cent. Why? Perhaps because to announce that you intended to work from home was always seen as code for “having a bit of a day off”.

I expect the latest census will report a WFH number closer to 15 per cent in August 2021, if not higher. That would reflect a trajectory shift of seismic proportions. A 10-percentage point uplift in the proportion of people working from home takes 1.3 million commuters off the roads. This reduces carbon emissions, is kinder to our mental health, changes the logic of motorway investment and most likely delivers a net increase in the productive output per worker – evidence that could form the basis for future wage claims. If this assessment about working from home proves correct, it shows that the pandemic has indeed been an inflection point. Demographic change of this scale reflects an intrinsic values-based shift in the thinking, expectations and behaviour of the Australian people.

Another seismic shift that may well be detected is in the proportion of Australians living in a home that is either owned outright or with a mortgage. This figure has been declining for 20 years as hip apartmentia usurped staid suburbia, especially among the young. But I suspect this decline has slowed and possibly even reversed in some markets.

The Millennial generation, the children of Baby Boomers, are now pushing into their late 30s, many partnered up and with kids in tow, and likely to be looking for the space – maybe the serenity – of a separate house on a separate block of land. Could it be that Millennials are officially leaving the inner city behind and are careening towards middle age and the wilds of outer suburbia? If so, surely they will want to make over that dreary three-bedroom brick-veneer house into an homage to the hipster home replete with a Zoom room of one’s own.

Meanwhile, as Baby Boomers leave the workforce and fully enter the retirement phase of the life cycle, will there be a mad scramble, post Covid, for Rhine River cruises? Maybe this demographic movement will trigger a return to traditional religion as Boomers confront their own looming mortality. How will we know any of this? Because it’s all there buried deep within the dusty data vaults of the census.

The census will be reported amid a flurry of edgy infographics, but beyond the gee-whiz figures are far deeper questions about who we are and how we have changed. I think we will look back and say the 2021 census results revealed a reimagined Australia confidently, sustainably and inclusively heading deeper into the unknown of the 21st century.