Some interesting observations on Australasian demographics, from the most recent KPMG Population Growth Report. The report confirms the "bloke drought" some Australian women have observed, and blames it on globalisation, with eligible bachelors decamping to more vital and/or exciting parts of the world. As one might expect, New Zealand is more affected by this than Australia:
"If you are a 34-year-old heterosexual woman in New Zealand, you have as much chance of finding a male partner of your own age as does an 85-year-old woman."
He believes this trend has contributed to New Zealand's "matriarchal society" - both its prime minister and governor-general are women.
(New Zealand is a matriarchial society? Perhaps the Doug Anthony Allstars were onto something...)

Another part of the report highlights the "sea change movement", i.e., Australian aspirationals moving to small coastal towns:

Mr Salt believes the so-called sea change is now a legitimate "third Australian culture". "First it was the bush, then it was the 'burbs, and now it is the beach".
Interesting how that list of "legitimate Australian cultures" omits the inner cities, without which Australia would have been little more than a nation of bourgeois curtain-twitchers eating Yorkshire puddings and mashed potatoes around the telly and tut-tutting disapprovingly along with the Herald-Sun. Could they have bought into the Howard-era silent-majoritarian doctrine that such rootless cosmopolitanism is somehow inherently un-Australian?

Posted by: dj | http://deej.bah.id.au | Thu Jul 28 01:45:46 2005

Of a lot of the people I know (of varying socioecnomic backgrounds) rootless cosmopolitanism is pretty much par for the course. I'm the odd one out, but then I'd definately qualify as un-Australian on a whole lot of other levels.

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