Australians are getting older, and more are female.
The phenomenon has become so noticeable Bureau of Statistics officials say Australia has a case of “middle-aged spread”.
The 2016 census shows the median age of all Australians has been steadily increasing from 23 in 1911, to 28 in 1966, to 38 in 2016.
As the baby-boomer generation ages, the number of residents aged over 65 has also swollen.
One in 25 people were aged over 65 in 1911, but that figure shifted dramatically to one in seven in 2011, and was just one in six in 2016.
It means the number of people aged 65 to 69 is now 1,188,999, up from 757,385 in 2006.
Over the same period, the number of people aged 70 to 74 has increased to 887,716 from 616,051.
There are now nearly half a million people aged 85 and over, at 486,842 (up from 322,851 in 2006).
Today people in that age group comprise 2.1% of our usual resident population.
The ABS says thanks to improvements in diet, public health and medical technology, Australia’s population of centenarians – people who live to or beyond 100 years – grew to 3,500 in 2016.
Meanwhile, the proportion of children and teenagers among the population has declined noticeably in the past five years, in almost all groups except for among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
Children aged up to 14 years make up 18.7% of the population (down from 19.3% in 2011) and people aged 65 years and over make up 15.7% of the population (up from 14% in 2011).
The proportion of women has also increased.
The 1981 census was the first to count more women than men in Australia, and women have continued to outnumber men since then. The proportion of women increased to 50.7% in 2016 (11,855,248), from 50.6% in 2011 (10,873,706).
The proportion of men decreased slightly, to 49.3% in 2016 (11,546,638), from 49.4% in 2011 (10,634,012).
Women are living longer than men. Of people aged 65 or older, 54% are women (1,972,387) and 46% are men (1,704,374). Of people aged 85 and older, 63% are women (306,494) and 37% are men (180,351).
The number of widowed females aged 85 and over (227,487) is significantly higher than men (60,467), while the number of married females aged 85 and over (51,212) is significantly lower than men (100,443).
