Subnational Contributions to Population Ageing: Insights from Australia
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30 Apr 2026
14:00-15:00, Redwood Room at The Malthouse
- Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science Seminar Add to Calendar
Tabitha Scott is a PhD candidate at the School of Demography at Australian National University. Tabitha is the recipient of numerous demographic awards, including the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research Honours Scholarship and the esteemed W.D. Borrie Prize from the Australian Population Association. Her research focuses on using formal demographic methods to understand population ageing throughout the world.
Population ageing is occurring in many countries worldwide, however, the influence of subnational-level factors on national ageing is often overlooked. We study the change over time in national mean age and disentangle the subnational and age-specific contributions. This method is applied to Australian census data from 2011 and 2021 across subnational indicators including education, income, partnership status, region of birth, religion and urbanicity. Population ageing occurred nationally and in all subnational populations considered. Many subnational populations with the largest increases in mean age counteracted national ageing, while subnational populations with smaller increases in mean age contributed most to national ageing. These seemingly paradoxical results occur because a subnational population’s impact on national ageing is largely determined by its growth rate. This demonstrates the importance of considering underlying factors in subnational analysis. More generally, it calls for nuance when considering the interplay between demographic processes at the national and subnational level.