Record number of overseas born residents living in Australia

The number of people born overseas living in Australia has reached record levels, new figures show.

The latest data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that 28.5 per cent, or 6.9 million, of Australia’s total population was born overseas.

Just a decade ago, that proportion stood at 24.6 per cent, or 5 million people. The recent increase has been driven by strong immigration levels, most notably from China and India.

In the year to June 2016 (when the data is taken from), 482,665 people entered Australia on either a temporary or permanent visa. Around 15.4 per cent of these were Australians returning home from abroad, meaning that around 400,000 foreign-born nationals moved to Oz in that 12-month period alone.

In overall terms, the ABS data reveals that Brits remain the largest group of overseas-born residents in Australia. People born in the UK account for 5 per cent of Australia’s total population, with approximately 1.198 million Brits living Down Under.

New Zealand is the second most popular source country (2.5 per cent of the total population), followed by China (2.2 per cent), India (1.9 per cent) and the Philippines and Vietnam, both at 1 per cent.

New South Wales and Victoria are by far and away the two most popular locations for foreign-born Australian residents, with almost 75 per cent of overseas residents settling in these states.

Article published 11th October 2017