Some quirky Census facts

The ABS has recently released it's "quirky census facts" from the 2006 Census. Having worked as a census collector, I can assure you that "quirky" doesn't begin to cover some of what I encountered. Still, for fact junkies like myself, these might provide some interesting conversation fodder:

Locations with the highest proportion of high-income people

Canberra's suburb of Forrest is the statistical local area with the highest concentration of adults (aged 15 years and over) with gross personal incomes of $2000 or more per week (24%), closely followed by the Shire of Peppermint Grove in Perth (also 24%).

Uncommon ancestries

Among the smallest ancestry groups recorded in the Census were Hmong (2189 people), Manx (1853), Tatar (299), Mayan (127), and Masai (32). In some cases a person might have claimed one of these in combination with another ancestry.

Nil hours of housework

Just over 39% of males and almost 29% of females aged 15–19 years did no housework in the week prior to the Census. Of the people aged 15–19 who did nil hours of housework, 86% were dependent students or non-dependent children living with their parents.

Internet connection

The suburb of Pullenvale in Brisbane had the highest Internet connection rate of 92% for its occupied private dwellings, slightly ahead of the Canberra suburb of Fadden (91%) and the Brisbane suburb of Chapel Hill (91%).

Convents and monasteries

There were 581 convents, monasteries, and similar religious institutions counted in the 2006 Census. This was less than three quarters of the number counted in 1996 and less than half the number counted in 1986.

Recent arrivals: place of settlement

Of the 756,000 people who had arrived since 2001 to stay in Australia for one year or more, 31% settled in the statistical division (SD) of Sydney, 24% in Melbourne SD, 11% in both Perth SD and Brisbane SD, 5% in Adelaide SD and 3% in the Gold Coast SD.

Women dominate higher education

Of people attending TAFE institutions and university, 52% and 57% respectively were women.

Private and public schooling

In 2006, 35% of students in primary and secondary school attended private schools. In 1996 the proportion was 30%. One per cent of the increase can be attributed to attendance at Catholic schools and the remaining 4% to other non-government schools.

Source: ABS 2006 Census.