Migrants to become majority in Australia by 2025

SYDNEY - Migrants from other countries including India will overtake the number of locally-born residents in Australia by 2025, a media report said Sunday.

An Australian-born family will become a minority within the next 15 years, outnumbered by a surging wave of migrants from Europe and Asia, the Daily Telegraph reported quoting demographic consultants Macroplan Australia.

Most migrants to Australia come from Britain (14.2 percent), followed by New Zealand (11.4), India (11.2), China (10.5) South Africa (5.3) and the Philippines (4.1).

The ratio of foreign-born residents was higher in Sydney and Melbourne because these were the two most popular destinations for new arrivals, Bob Birrell, co-director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research, was quoted as saying.

“We’re getting lots more Indian and Chinese immigrants coming to study, but many of those will end up settling here,” Birrell said.

According to 2006 census data, 40 percent of the population was either born overseas or had at least one parent who was born abroad.

But at present immigration levels, that proportion will jump to more than 50 percent by 2025. Migrants are expected to swell the population from 22 million today to 36 million by 2050.

But experts are of the opinion that a migrant majority will be healthy for Australian culture and attitudes.

“It all adds to the cosmopolitan nature of modern Australia,” Bernard Salt, a demographer was quoted as saying.

“It means our views become less blinkered, and we become more tolerant, confident, engaged, opportunistic and optimistic because we are open to new ideas, not obsessed with keeping things the same,” he said.