Indigenous Population Demographics

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Introduction
Australia is considered one of the safest countries in the world in which to have a baby or to be born. However, this is not the case for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (also referred to as Indigenous people, Indigenous population or Indigenous women). There is an abundance of literature which suggests there are broad disparities in maternal and infant health (MIH) between indigenous people and other Australians; this worsens with increasing remoteness where it is more difficult to access health care services (Kildea, Kruske, Barclay, & Tracy, 2010). Housing, income, community influence, and provision of health services are some determinants of health that affect the outcome of MIH in the Indigenous population …show more content…
Of the 649,200 individuals who reported being of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander descent in 2016, 91 percent were of Aboriginal descent, 5 percent reported being of Torres Strait descent, and 4.1 percent reported being of both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2017a).
Although New South Wales has the highest population of Indigenous people (more than 216,000 people), the Northern Territory has Australia’s highest proportion with 25.5 percent of the Northern Territory’s total population (ABS, 2017a). In the 2016 census, 35% of Indigenous Australians reported living in capital city areas, in contrast with 68% for non-Indigenous people. In South Australia and Victoria half of the Indigenous population lived in the capital city areas. Compared to 79% of the indigenous population in the Northern Territory living outside of the capital area (ABS, …show more content…
Education is critical for overcoming disadvantage and according to the same census, 19% of Indigenous Australians aged 25-64 years reported to have left school at Year 9, compared to 6.7% for non-Indigenous Australians but compared to the 2011 census both groups have improved from 24% and 8.6% (ABS, 2017a). In 2016, there were 18,560 births registered in Australia where one or both parents were Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander (6% of all births in Australia) (ABS, 2017b). Indigenous women had more children and them at a younger aged compared with non-Indigenous women, the median age of Indigenous women who registered a birth in 2016 was 25.5 years, roughly six years lower than the median age of all mothers (31.2 years) (ABS, 2017b). On average, Indigenous women had 2.1 births in their lifetime (compared to 1.8 births for all Australian women) ABS,
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