NT Population Studies Seminars

Charles Darwin Uni is hosting a series of seminars relating to its research into the Northern Territory Population. Kicking it off this Friday (8 March 2008) is Elizabeth Creed with “In-depth interviews of the Northern Territory population mobility project: preliminary results”. Elizabeth’s findings provide some fascinating insights into what attracts people to the NT, what keeps them here and what make them leave! The research has also shed light on what people think it means to be a ‘Territorian’.

 On Thursday 20 March, I am giving an update on the total research program here at CDU. Then on 4 April our PhD students are talking about their work on employee mobility in NT hotels and the consequences of population turnover for the identity of Mindil Beach. Finally (for now, at least), Professor Stephen Garnett is discussing the results of our large project on mobility of various professional workforce groups (dentists, nurses, accountants and engineers).

I’ll provide some feedback on each of the seminars here, and we’ll try and m ake the powerpoint presentations available on the main web site. Details at www.cdu.edu.au/sspr/seminars.html.

Australian Population Association Conference

I’ve just had a meeting with the Organising Committee for the 2008 Australian Population Association (APA) Conference – they have received nearly 100 abstracts dealing with the themes of Indigenous demography, Policy responses to demographic change and Demography of Australia’s Northern Neighbours. There are several papers from the Charles Darwin Uni/ NT Government research team, so hopefully we will get some good feedback on where our research is headed. Have a look at the conference website (www.nt.gov.au/ntt/apa2008) to see how the program develops.

Succession Planning for the NT Workforce

 There has been some recent discussion about the ageing of the Northern Territory’s working population, and how that might influence economic growth in the near future. According to the 2006 Census, about 13% of the NT’s employed labour force was aged 55 or over – so very likely to be removed from the labour force in the next five to ten years. This will be the case whether they leave the NT or not. If you add to this the intention to leave the NT by employed people in other age groups, you get some sense of the required ‘replacement rate’ facing the NT in the near future. According to the Northern Territory Population Mobility Survey (TMS) that Charles Darwin University ran in 2006, about 24% of employed people aged under 55 intended to leave the NT in the next couple of years. So, we may be looking at needing to replace one third of the current working population in the next five years or so.The situation is more stark for younger working people. 55% of working people aged under 30, and 42% aged under 35 were planning an imminent departure from the NT. These people may more likely be employed in entry level jobs, and be important in terms of upskilling to higher level jobs, contributing to longer term knowledge retention and so on. It seems that the younger age groups is where most of the ‘population churn’ occurs. According to the 2006 Census, the 20-29 and 30-39 age groups had both the highest interstate immigration rates (i.e. they were more likely to have arrived in the NT from another State or Territory in the past year) and the highest interstate emigration rates (i.e. they were more likely to have left the NT for another State or Territory in the past year) of all ten year age groups. For example, around 20% of people aged 20-29 left the Northern Territory between 2005 and 2006. About the same percentage all Territorians aged 20-29 had arrived in the NT in the same period.

Interestingly, the TMS found very few relationships between the age of workers and why they came to the NT, why they would leave, what they liked and what they disliked about living here. The question for policy is how we might go about influencing this ‘churn’, or, indeed, whether it is possible to influence the churn at all – or should we be trying to find better ways to live with it?

NT population flows – 2001-2006

I have been playing around with the use of GIS to help visualise the relatively complex data relating to people moving into and out of the Northern Territory. The attached jpg shows the flows into and out of the Territory between 2001 and 2006 according to the 2006 Census of Population and Housing (from the Australian Bureau of Statistics). It shows net flows to/from each statistical subdivision (SSD) in Australia. Red lines go to SSDs to which we lost population overall. Blue lines go to SSDs from which we gained population. The blue line going off the mainland is to ‘external territories’, while the ugly blob at the top was supposed to represent ‘overseas’ (but we only have data about migration from overseas, not migration to). The map indicates gains from the west and regional areas in NSW, Victoria and South Australia. This might reflect the types of jobs that have been available in the NT in the resources sector. Flows out tend to be to southern capital cities, and Queensland. Other research shows a tendency to retire to Queensland, and for young professionals to move to urban areas outside the NT.

 Ultimately we want to have a series of map templates which allow interpretation of different aspects of mobility. Comments on the potential usefulness of maps like this one are welcome.