Migration and ageing processes in non-metropolitan Australia: an analysis of 30 years of dramatic change

Abstract

While a substantial literature on the multi-faceted topic of migration trends and processes within rural Australia now exists, less attention has been devoted to other related and crucial aspects of demographic change, such as falling fertility and differential ageing. Built on a Census-based analysis of demographic change at the rural community scale from 1981 to 2011 and taking the lower Murray/Murrumbidgee catchments as a case study, this chapter provides a longitudinal examination of migration, fertility changes and associated demographic structural change. In doing so, the chapter employs two measures of ageing in the study area relative to that of Australia as a whole: a relative ageing index (RAI), and a related comparative age profile measure (CAP). The impact of structural and numerical ageing processes across and within the case study area over 30 years is summarised. Initially treating community populations as undifferentiated wholes, in analysing the ageing process the chapter takes account of internal changes that greatly impact on future settlement viability, distinguishing particularly between trends in the central towns and their surrounding dispersed rural population. Finally it draws out the relevance of the findings for regional economic and social planning and policy.