2011 Census Jewish Facts and Figures
The estimated Jewish population of Australia has grown to 112,000 according to the results of the 2011 census…up 6% from the 2006 census and up 20% from the 2001 census.
J-Wire presents the national facts and figures.
The highest concentration of Jews live in Melbourne’s Caulfield North which is home to 10,200.
The national median age for all Australians is 37 but the the median age for the Jewish community is 42. The oldest Jewish age median is South Australia at 48.
During the year leading up to the census, 1,240 Jewish babies were born among the 43,500 households in Australia in which at least one person was Jewish.
The census revealed that 2,650 members of the Jewish community were single parents.
1,300 Jews live in nursing homes and 10,200 live alone. 1,600 of them are above the age of 85 compared with 1,300 in 2006.
77% of Jews have a Jewish partner. 9% have a partner who did not state a religion and 14% have non-Jewish partners.
In the ten years since the 2011 census the number of Jews with a Jewish partner increased by 12% but the number of those with a non-Jewish partner has risen by 23% and those with a partner with no religion is up by 73%.
The 2011 census shows that 11,000 Jews did not have a Jewish partner.
The number of Jewish men with a non-Jewish partner is double that of a Jewish woman in the same position.
Whereas 73% of all Australians were born here, only 51% of the Jewish population are native born.
During the five year period between the censuses, 5,300 Jewish immigrants have made Australia their home.
Of the Australian Jewish community 11% were born in Eastern Europe and 14% were born in South Africa.
The number of South African born Jews is up 10% to 15,000 and Israeli-born Jews is up 25% to an estimated 7,000 since the 2006 census.
Hebrew is expected to soon take over from Russian as the most common foreign language spoken by Australian Jews.
14% of all Australian families were shown to have a combined income of over $3,000 weekly. 33% of Jewish families fit into that category.
19% of all Australians participate in volunteering activities. Amongst the Jewish community then figure is 28%
6,200 members of the Jewish community were in need of assistance. 3,300 of them were aged over 80.
Less than 1% of the world’s estimated 13.5 million Jews live in Australia…but the country has the ninth largest Jewish community.
Victoria has the largest Jewish community with 51,954 recorded Jews as opposed to 45,717 in NSW. The Victorian figure shows an increase of 6.3% since 2006 whereas NSW is up 4.7%.
Western Australia is in third spot with 6,739 up 7.1% with Queensland up 15.2% at 5,110.
South Australia was the only state to show a negative figure down .3% to 1,252. The ACT is up 13.6% to 776 and Tasmania up 3.5% to 285.
The largest percentage increase belongs to the Northern Territory up 21.4% to 170.
As reported earlier Caulfield North in Melbourne has the largest Jewish neighbourhood. Sydney’s Dover Heights is the largest in NSW in throe spot with a Jewish population of 5,228.
The largest number of Jews nationally by age fall into 0-14 bracket followed bo those between 54 and 64.
All Australians are obliged to complete the census data sheets. Declaring one’s religion is not compulsory.
The data above was extracted from a report prepared by Dr David Graham under the auspices of the JCA and Monash University
I am never quite sure how the ‘estimated Jewish population’ is counted from Census data. I can find ‘religious affiliation – Jewish’ (~91,000) and ‘ancestry – Jewish’ (1-2,000) in the census, but neither are big enough to account for the extra 20,000 odd people in the ‘estimate Jewish population’. Obviously the Jewish population is way bigger than the 91,000 odd who identify as religiously affiliated with Judaism – but, how is the estimated increase of 20,000 calculated??? I am really curious and keep wanting to use this info for assignments, but can’t find any explanations of how the bigger figures are reached… or who calculates the proportion of estimated jews as compared to the reported number of people who affiliate with religious Judaism??? thoughts??? 🙁
Surely you mean it was up 20% from the 2001 census not 2011 census?
You are quite right and thank you for pointing this out
I’d be interested to see how the percent of Australia’s population identifying as Jewish has changed since records began.