The Growth of Australian Population - Statistics Project Example

Running Header: AUSTRALIAN POPULATION BY 2050 Australian Population by 2050 Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction Australian Bureau of Statistics (2010) argues that Australian population growth is currently growing at a rate of 450000 persons per year. It is one of the fastest growing developed countries in terms of population at a growth rate of 2.1 percent per year. According to common wealth Treasury projects, Australian population is expected to grow to 36million by year 2050 from the current 22million. This figure has led to the emergence of the term ‘big Australia’. Temporary visa holders for education and employment purposes dominate large part of this population increase. During the past few years, there has been a remarkable increase in Australian population that exceeds 450,000 on an annual basis as in September 2009. The overseas migration has tripled in recent years from 100,000 in 1990’s to 300,000 in the last count of September 2009. Until last year, Australia was taking about 244,000 immigrants per year. The fertility rates have increased with natural population rate of growth of over 150,000 per year. However, according to government reports, the population growth is predicted to grow at an average annual rate of 1.2 percent over next forty years slightly lower compared to 1.4 growth rate in past 40 years. The population continues to grow at an annual rate of 2.1 percent in 2008-09 to a decrease of 0.9 percent in 2050. There are main factors that should be taken into consideration when determining the population growth rate by the Australian government. This includes fertility rates and mortality rates as the natural determinants. Net oversees migration mainly encompassed of permanent migration (family and skilled) and temporary migration (students and temporary skilled) as well as longevity are the other determinants. Factors that might be considered as a result of the rapid increase of the population is competing policies, inadequate health facilities, increasing competition on amenities, education, religion and cultural conflicts among others. According to Andrew, James & Peter, (2010), approximately 90% of immigrants in Australia today are younger than 40 years. This compares to 55% of native Australians. However, the number of Australians aged between 65 and 84 years will be expected to double by 2050 with those over 85 years being more than quadruple. The number of those who are working to support every retiree is expected to fall from 5 people to 2.7 by 2050. This number was 7.5 in 1970. Government aims to boost productivity growth to 2 percent in next 40 years. Latest productivity has gone down to approximately 1.4 percent from 2000 down from 2.1 percent in 1990s. Even though the rate of fertility has increased slightly, there has a mini-baby-boom. However, the recent increase of fertility rate as compared to previous years is expected to increase the population levels by 2050. The increasing fertility rate is a crucial determinant of the increasing population within the next 40 years in Australia. However, the number of old population is projected to be elevated with 22 percent of the population living 65 years and above in 2050. The current fertility rate is 2.0 births per woman. Even though the rate of fertility had decreased in past 40 years from 2.9 to 1.7, it has recovered to 2.0 currently. In 1961, the fertility was 3.5 births per woman. However, in 1960s and 1970s, the total fertility rate decreased during 1960s and 1970s then stabilized in 1980s then declining further up to 2001. From that time, the fertility has been increasing to 2 births per woman in 2008 as stated earlier. The number of children is anticipated to increase by 45 percent with working-age also expected to increase by 44 percent between 2010and 2050. This is also expected for the older generation of over 65 years. Rates of mortality have declined considerably in the last century. The life expectancy has been on the rise for women and men. These have significantly contributed to the population growth of Australia as well as an increasing proportion of older people in the Australian population. Mortality is a factor that should be taken into consideration by the Australian government when determining the appropriate population growth rate by 2050. The crude mortality rate has declined from 9.1 deaths per every 1000 people in 1968 to 6.7 deaths per every 1000 people in 2008. This is a clear indication that population growth will increase even more by year 2050 as old-age population rises because of lower rates of mortality. The life expectancy of women and men is converging slowly. Life expectancy at birth for women was 83.7 years while that of men was 79.2 years in 2006-08. This is an increase of 24.9 and 24.0 years respectively from 1901-1910. These mortality rates are anticipated to decrease, with men expected to live an average of 7.6 years more in 2050 than 2010 while women having an average of 6.1 years longer. In 2050, men aged 60 are anticipated to stay longer by an average of 5.8 years than those in 2010 while women staying an average of 4.8 years more. The net overseas migration is anticipated to increase at a rate of 0.6 percent of total population per annum on average as from the past 40 years. According to Rudd Government, Oversees migration accounts for two thirds of current increase in population. This is an increase of more than 40percent compared to earlier years of the former government. According to Kevin Rudd’s government, Australia assumes an average migration of oversees of 180000 per year. This is expected to produce a population of 36million by 2050. Previously, the inter-generational report that the coalition government produced predicted a population of 29 million by 2047; this is an average net oversees migration rate of 110,000 per annum. Under the newly employed net oversees migration definitions in 2010 IGR, this is corresponding to 140,000 per annum. The current average rate of net oversees migration for first seven quarters of Rudd government was 300,000 per annum, which is unsustainable. This would produce a population of 42.3 million people by 2049. The present rate of net oversees migration is more than Big Australia net oversees Migration of 180,000 per annum and 140,000 net oversees migration projected in second intergenerational report. The increasing population growth in Australia is posing a substantial threat to various Australian resources and other national features. This is through straining urban resources and natural environment as well as the significance change of culture and region by 2050 in Australia. Increased immigration and population increase will eventually lead to rise of religious conflicts in Australia. This is because many people are from various religious backgrounds such as Muslims, Hindu, and Christians. The more the number of religions increasing with a higher number of followers, the higher the aggressiveness of conflicts among them. If situations are not well checked, the disputes or tensions from religion growth might arise leading to significant ethnic division in Australia. Therefore, the Australian government should put in place the necessary measures to ensuring such situations or disputes will not arise when population increases by 2050. This also results to multiculturalism, whereby various diversified cultures arises creating tension. This might as well result to rise in to ethnic disputes or racism among communities. Because of population rise, there is the likelihood of more children within the society, this call for more childcare services to the society. This may make these services become insufficient for the society. This might augment the demand for the amenities hence the need to establish appropriate amenities so as to cater for these required society. The higher the population, the more the number of young children, which is likely to be the situation that Australia might find itself in by 2050 due to rapid population increase. Therefore, the Australian government requires coming up with well planned strategies that will address this situation before it arises. This is through the establishment of childcare units within several regions. Public amenities and urban sprawl are other majorly pending issue because of rapid population increase by 2050. The more the increase in population, the more demand for public utilities and other amenities arise in various regions including urban and rural areas within Australia. Therefore, there is a need for municipal councils to address these issues before the population increase becomes unbearable or satisfied by these amenities and other public services. Well-prepared plans will ensure that they are reduced urban problems because of population rise in Australia by 2050. Government and other stakeholder should play their part towards effective planning of the urban amenities and other public utilities. There are various problems being raised by competing policy considerations including the rise of pressure on set up healthy policy, education policy, infrastructure and planning policies, and old age labour. A lot of pressure is being impacted into the current set policies because they are no longer applicable to the currently rising population. They are also not capable of sustaining the needs of such rapidly increasing population in Australia. Infrastructure policies currently in place require to be reviewed in order to cater for the needs of the rapid increasing population. The healthy policy set will not be able to meet the aggressive necessities of increasing population by 2050. Therefore, is raises problems of unrealizable policies that need to be set again. Competing policy considerations lead to unrealistic goals that are never achieved. This is because of unexpected and rapid increase of population. In order to resolve these problems, it is essential for the Australian government to reset its policies in areas of health, education, infrastructure among other policies that involve population or society. It order for the Australian government to be able to solve the problems raised by competing policy and rapid rise of the population, it is advisable for a special task force to be set up. This is for looking and addressing those issues as well as setting policies and strategies that will be able to care for the rapidly increasingly population. The task force shall have a responsibility of ensuring the rapidly increasing population needs are looked after through effectively. It will ensure all the problems that arise because of population rise such as infrastructure, health, public amenities, and others are well solved in ensuring the life of Australians is improved. The team will also consider the problem of immigrants and set up policies that will solve the high number of increasing immigrants. It will ensure appropriate measures are set up to limit the number of those getting into Australia according to John, Nieuwenhuysen & Stine, (2009). Population growth in Australia will lead to a relative increase of resources scarcity and natural assets like hospitals, roads, schools, telecommunications networks, electricity, and water supply systems. This calls for implementation of new planning policies and strategies in Australia in order to be able to cater for the increasing population by 2050. Population and immigration makes the allocation of scarce resources harder, creating more competing ends. There has been increased demand of electricity power in Tasmania. This has led to building of more alternatives of power generation like wind turbine. This is due to increased population, which is expected to be even higher by 2050 hence, the need to increase its production to cater for increasing population. The wages of workers are also expected to fall as more immigrants flow into Australia. There is also a likelihood of a high rate of unemployment as more immigrants get into Australia. There will be a massive shortage of affordable housing in urban areas like Sydney and Melbourne as more immigrants get into Australia to look for employment. According to Kerry O’Brien, Australia is falling behind in the race of building new homes towards meeting the growing population demands for houses according to John, Nieuwenhuysen & Stine, (2009). Australia is falling short of 40,000 houses a year. However, this problem might be solved through building houses hundreds of kilometers away in order to ensure the problem is tackled. By contrast, to current policy, population of Australia should be based on sustainability principles, future health, and the population wellbeing. The factors taken into consideration are constraints imposed by a shortage of water, ecological services loss, and loss of humanity footprint on Australian land. The increased population will lead to green house emissions increase. This is a formidable challenge to the climate change and other pollutants in the atmosphere. This is a severe risk to the Australian population. The current and expected rate of population growth is expected to impose a considerable strain on existing health services in Australia. This is in terms of finance, trained personnel, and administration. This has called for an increase of service provision by the government in order to meet the demands for those services. This is towards reducing the increased competition of the available services. The population of Australia is expected to rise greatly in the next 50 years. This is due to increased fertility rate in the recent years as well as falling mortality rate. Increased immigration has been a crucial factor behind the increased rate of population in Australia. With increasing number of immigrants in Australia, this is expected to have an adverse effect on rate of population growth by 2050. This will have a competing effect on available resources and other amenities in Australia. Therefore, the government has to set up policies and strategies towards ensuring the increasing population is well looked. This is through setting up plans and policies to control the number of immigrants getting in Australia. Coming of a unique task force will ensure the problems arising because of increasing population are handled. It will also solve the problem of increasing immigrants in Australia. References Andrew, M., James, J. & Peter, M. (2010). Australia’s Immigration Revolution. New York: Allen & Unwin. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2010). Year book, Australia, issue 87. Melbourne: Aust. Bureau of Statistics. John, H., Nieuwenhuysen, J. & Stine, N. (2009. Nations of Immigrants: Australia and the USA Compared. California: Edward Elgar Publishing, Read More