WHATSAPPLatest data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that the Indian population in Australia grew by 30 percent between 2016 and 2018. In June 2016, the number of Indians living in Australia was 455,389, as per Census 2016. This number rose to 592,000 by June 2018, shows the preliminary estimates by the ABS.
Indians have now become the third largest community in Australia, pushing the New Zealand born to the third place. The Indian population constitutes 2.4% of the Australian population and the median age of Indian migrants is 34 years, the same as that of Australia-born residents.
Indians have been the largest source of migrants to Australia since 2016. In 2016-2017, Australia issued a total of 183,608 PR visas. Out of these, 38,854 PR visas were issued to Indians. In 2017-2018, the number of PR visas issued by Australia was 162,417 and the number visas granted to Indians was 33,310.
The number of Indian students in Australia also touched a seven-year high in 2018. As per the data, around 70,000 students were studying in Australian universities and colleges in November 2017.
The population of migrants was more than seven million in Australia as in June 2018. In other words, overseas-born residents constituted more than 29 per cent of the population. The largest group of overseas-born residents in Australia continues to be the England-born diaspora. Second is the Chinese, with more than 651000 China-born residents living in the country.
Along with the migrant population, the Indian languages have also grown in Australia. The top Indian language spoken at home in Australia is Hindi, with 159,652 speakers. Second is Punjabi, with 132,496 speakers. These two languages are among the top 10 languages spoken in Australia. The other Indian languages that witnessed a significant increase in the number of speakers in Australia during this period are Tamil (73,161), Bengali (54,566), Malayalam (53,206), Gujarati (52,888), Telugu (34,435), Marathi (13,055) and Kannada (9701). Konkani, Kashmiri, Oriya and Sindhi are also being spoken in Australia, though speakers are a minority.
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