According to analysis from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, both of ‘Claire’s’ parents were born in Australia

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

The “typical” Australian is a 38-year-old married woman with two children and both parents born in Australia, the first insights from the 2016 census have revealed.

The analysis, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday, suggests the typical Australian woman does up to nine hours more housework a week than the typical man and finds the median age for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is 15 years younger than all Australians.

The typical Australian – dubbed Claire by the ABS – is determined by the median age and the most common answers for questions including marital status, education and type of home. The analysis comes before the first census data release on 27 June.

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Claire completed year 12, lives in a three-bedroom house with a mortgage and two cars. She does five to 14 hours of unpaid domestic work a week, compared with less than five hours a week done by the typical Australian male, who is 37 years old.

The census found the typical Australian, male or female, was born in Australia, has English ancestry and parents born in Australia. However, the typical person from New South Wales, Victoria or Western Australia has at least one parent who was born overseas.

The typical migrant in Queensland was born in New Zealand, in Victoria they were born in India and in New South Wales the most common country of origin was China.

The typical Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person was a 23-year-old woman.

Among persons born overseas, the median age was 44, and the typical person was a woman born in England.

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The only states where men outnumbered women were the Northern Territory and Western Australia, where the typical person was a 34-year-old male and a 37-year-old male respectively.

The 2016 census was plagued by technical difficulties, after a 43-hour outage caused by the ABS taking the online form down after denial of service attacks. The ABS has said the shutdown cost $30m in a reduction from savings expected to be made by moving the census online.

Small business minister, Michael McCormack, said in a statement on Tuesday that the 2016 census collected 4.9m online forms and 3.5m paper forms, a response rate of 96% and on par with the 2011 consensus.

“More than 58% of Australians completed their census online, representing a shift of 2.2 million more households participating online than in 2011,” he said.



McCormack said that “no two people living in Australia are the same and we’ve changed”.



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“The profiles released today will not only show some major attributes of Aussies in 2016 but it will also provide some contrast to a typical Aussie from the first census in 1911.” In 1911 the typical Australian was a 24-year-old male, but women have outnumbered men since 1979.

The June release will contain 80,000 summaries of local area data, containing nearly three million tables and more than 68m pieces of data.

“These statistics will represent the combined efforts of over 700 ABS staff and more than 23 million clerical operations in classifying the data, and I want to thank the ABS for its efforts to date,” McCormack said.

“Data from the census is a vital resource to help governments, business and communities shape the future of our nation and our regions.”

The full census results will be released after the independent assurance panel of experts has reviewed the detailed results and provided its report.