Characteristics of Australia

Data from the 2021 national census

This webpage shares results from the the 2021 Australian census on age, sex, and household income. This data may be useful for building survey samples representative of Australians. In particular: Table 1 describes the proportion of Australians across age categories; Table 2 describes the proportion of Australians across sexes; and Table 5 describes the annual household income of Australians.

Raw count data is provided in Table 4 and Table 6.

Introduction

In 2021, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) conducted a census of Australians. Methodology can be found on the ABS’ website. For age, respondents were asked their date of birth or age. For sex, respondents were asked to select whether the person was: “male”, “female”, or “non-binary sex”.¹ For income, respondents were asked to report their total weekly income. To calculate household income, the total weekly income was summed for each resident aged 15 years or older present in the household on Census Night.²

In this document, I have used the same terminology as the census.

Sex and age

Age

Table 1:

The total count and proportion of Australian’s age, categorised in decade-wide age groups.

Age (Years)	Total	Proportion (%)
18-29	3,922,048	19.71
30-40	3,691,904	18.55
40-50	3,284,811	16.51
50-60	3,152,855	15.85
60-70	2,766,567	13.90
70+	3,079,624	15.48

Sex

Table 2:

The total count and proportion of Australian’s sex.

Sex	Total	Proportion (%)
Female	10,193,732	51.23
Male	9,704,096	48.77

Cross-tabulating age and sex

Table 3:

Sex of Australians as a proportion of each decade-wide age group.

Age	Proportion (%)
	Female	Male
18-29	49.37	50.63
30-40	51.08	48.92
40-50	50.78	49.22
50-60	51.11	48.89
60-70	51.67	48.33
70+	53.99	46.01

Table 4:

Total number of Australians by age and sex.

Age (Years)	Female	Male	Total
18	138,862	145,713	284,576
19	139,856	146,391	286,245
20	146,388	154,993	301,381
21	152,428	160,227	312,655
22	153,894	160,620	314,519
23	156,992	162,938	319,928
24	163,008	168,053	331,063
25	167,611	173,465	341,075
26	174,606	178,701	353,303
27	177,274	178,313	355,587
28	180,893	178,329	359,229
29	184,452	178,035	362,487
30	189,985	182,013	371,996
31	191,390	183,210	374,597
32	189,587	180,690	370,276
33	189,157	178,995	368,151
34	188,580	179,481	368,059
35	190,000	181,977	371,982
36	190,158	181,228	371,385
37	187,798	180,169	367,966
38	187,792	181,672	369,464
39	181,379	176,649	358,028
40	177,663	174,132	351,793
41	168,852	165,259	334,111
42	165,976	161,850	327,822
43	161,473	157,193	318,666
44	160,469	155,979	316,452
45	160,160	156,315	316,469
46	162,435	156,866	319,301
47	165,415	159,102	324,521
48	169,145	162,263	331,411
49	176,296	167,969	344,265
50	180,288	171,265	351,555
51	166,527	159,536	326,055
52	165,219	157,479	322,696
53	157,854	151,061	308,918
54	153,896	147,829	301,719
55	152,986	146,964	299,951
56	154,497	148,136	302,630
57	159,026	152,124	311,151
58	161,328	154,155	315,483
59	159,838	152,859	312,697
60	159,496	151,398	310,898
61	154,023	144,744	298,774
62	150,933	142,230	293,164
63	148,059	138,192	286,253
64	144,428	134,586	279,015
65	141,386	132,977	274,364
66	138,209	128,006	266,220
67	134,001	123,503	257,505
68	131,874	122,785	254,658
69	127,091	118,630	245,716
70	124,742	116,451	241,192
71	122,106	113,763	235,866
72	117,152	109,314	226,470
73	115,227	108,751	223,976
74	120,261	113,000	233,262
75	97,730	91,699	189,431
76	92,857	85,328	178,187
77	87,125	79,715	166,835
78	77,095	68,829	145,927
79	74,474	67,063	141,538
80	68,073	59,584	127,654
81	64,668	55,647	120,314
82	61,126	50,440	111,569
83	56,215	45,591	101,809
84	52,039	41,213	93,253
85	47,018	36,137	83,149
86	42,276	30,853	73,133
87	37,505	26,722	64,218
88	34,252	23,289	57,544
89	30,416	19,933	50,347
90	28,127	17,462	45,590
91	24,710	14,744	39,450
92	20,510	11,560	32,070
93	17,263	8,812	26,072
94	13,594	6,588	20,181
95	10,520	4,978	15,502
96	8,167	3,312	11,480
97	5,966	2,272	8,238
98	4,208	1,541	5,746
99	2,996	1,083	4,073
100	1,895	538	2,425
101	1,123	324	1,442
102	564	142	703
103	360	78	441
104	216	44	260
105	105	29	130
106	69	3	74
107	20	8	31
108	15	3	25
109	6	0	7
110	4	4	6
111	4	0	4
112	0	0	0
113	0	0	0
114	0	0	0
115	0	0	0

Income

Annual income

Table 5:

The total count and proportion of annual household income in Australia.

Annual household income	Total households	Proportion of Households (%)
$25,999 or less	1,074,072	12.25
$26,000-$51,999	1,487,848	16.97
$52,000-$64,999	648,253	7.39
$65,000-$77,999	667,360	7.61
$78,000-$103,999	1,037,925	11.84
$104,000-$129,999	1,058,659	12.08
$130,000-$155,999	667,535	7.61
$156,000-$233,999	1,162,142	13.26
$234,000 or more	963,485	10.99

Weekly income

Table 6:

Total income per household.

Weekly income (annual income)	Total
Negative income	35,381
Nil income	135,890
$1-$149 ($1-$7,799)	61,662
$150-$299 ($7,800-$15,599)	115,443
$300-$399 ($15,600-$20,799)	207,226
$400-$499 ($20,800-$25,999)	518,470
$500-$649 ($26,000-$33,799)	383,480
$650-$799 ($33,800-$41,599)	545,103
$800-$999 ($41,600-$51,999)	559,265
$1,000-$1,249 ($52,000-$64,999)	648,253
$1,250-$1,499 ($65,000-$77,999)	667,360
$1,500-$1,749 ($78,000-$90,999)	524,764
$1,750-$1,999 ($91,000-$103,999)	513,161
$2,000-$2,499 ($104,000-$129,999)	1,058,659
$2,500-$2,999 ($130,000-$155,999)	667,535
$3,000-$3,499 ($156,000-$181,999)	588,910
$3,500-$3,999 ($182,000-$207,999)	366,591
$4,000-$4,499 ($208,000-$233,999)	206,641
$4,500-$4,999 ($234,000-$259,999)	383,541
$6,000-$7,999 ($312,000-$415,999)	229,548
$5,000-$5,999 ($260,000-$311,999)	262,326
$8,000 or more ($416,000 or more)	88,070
Partial income stated	481,636
All incomes not stated	187,188
Not applicable	1,439,142

Highest level of educational attainment

Table 7:

The total count and proportion of highest level of educational attainment in Australia.

Level of highest educational attainment	Total adults	Proportion (%)
Doctoral degree	206,012	1.17
Postgraduate or masters degree	1,153,363	6.56
Graduate diploma	495,921	2.82
Bachelor's degree	3,609,194	20.53
Certificate III or IV, diploma or advanced diploma	5,269,930	29.97
Year 10 or above, or Certificate I or II	5,657,053	32.18
Year 9 or below	1,189,879	6.77

Household size

An average of 2.55 people live in each Australian household.

Table 8:

The total count and proportion of the number of people living in each household.

Household size	Total households	Proportion of households (%)
1 or more people	9,275,208	100.00
2 or more people	6,904,466	74.44
3 or more people	3,795,441	40.92
4 or more people	2,321,584	25.03
5 or more people	890,794	9.60
6 or more people	302,401	3.26
7 or more people	103,399	1.11
8 or more people	41,906	0.45

Footnotes

1. A word of warning. As per ABS’ own words:

   The non-binary sex option was marked on the Census form for 43,220 respondents or 0.17% of the Australian population. Analysis indicates this number is not indicative of any single characteristic. Responses show the concept of non-binary sex was not consistently understood and was perceived in different ways by different people. Results cannot be used as a measure of gender diversity, non-binary genders or trans populations. Additionally, it cannot be used as a measure for diverse sexualities, nor can it be interpreted as the number of people with variations of sex characteristics.

   For these reasons and more, I have ignored non-binary sex responses when presenting sex statistics.

   I believe the age data used for the statistics in this document do not include respondents who selected the non-binary sex response.

2. More information available at: https://www.abs.gov.au/census/guide-census-data/census-dictionary/2021/variables-topic/income-and-work/equivalised-total-household-income-weekly-hied.