First: study these statistics. What do they tell us?
GRAPHIC:  Changing households
Relationship to nominated household member 2011 % change since 2006
Husband, wife or partner in a registered marriage 7,647,044  6.8%
Husband, wife or partner, de facto, opposite-sex 1,411,345  18.3%
Husband, wife or partner, de facto, male same-sex 33,719  29.6%
Husband, wife or partner, de facto, female same-sex 31,306  34.1%
Lone parent 901,638  9.5%
Child under 15 or 15-24 and studying full-time 4,884,350  6.9%
Child aged 15 or over and not studying full-time 1,226,194  5.8%
Dependent or non-dependent grandchild 57,002  22.1%
Nephew/niece 28,936  27.2%
Cousin 18,671  21.5%
Uncle/aunt 10,561  18.3%
Father/mother 112,873  16.8%
Grandfather/grandmother 13,582  14.6%
Brother/sister 215,994  14.3%
Other related individual 23,913  -2.0%
Unrelated individual living in family household 215,398  37.7%
Group household member 716,331  23.2%
Lone person 1,888,700  6.7%
Not applicable/non-classifiable 1,405,951  1.4%
Visitor (from within Australia) 664,211  11.9%
Total Persons 21,507,719  8.3%
CHANGING HOUSEHOLDS
Source: KPMG, based on census data
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Mixed-up families a reaction to change
- BY:RICK MORTON, SOCIAL AFFAIRS EDITOR
- From:The AustralianÂÂ
- May 23, 2013 12:00AM
AUSTRALIANS are embracing living with members of their extended families in greater numbers as a range of economic and social forces begin to bite.
Analysis of census data by The Australian’s social editor Bernard Salt reveals independent grandchildren choosing to live with their grandparents are among the fastest-rising household groups, growing by 28 per cent to 29,000 people in 2011.
Almost 60,000 grandchildren were living with their grandparents, including those being cared for by them, a number that rose by more than one-fifth.
Australia’s population grew by 8.3 per cent in the same period.
“These arrangements might come about due to a breakdown in the parental relationship,” Mr Salt said.
“But grandparent-grandchild living arrangements might also derive from the fact that grandchildren are today increasingly likely to shuffle between the parental home and a grandparent as places to live in order to pursue study or career opportunities.”
As the cost of living rises, particularly in the big cities, family ties are being invoked to spread the burden. “The rise of familial ties as a driving force to household formation goes beyond the grandparent-grandchild relationship,” Mr Salt said.
“Not only are Generation Y adult children increasingly likely to live with their parents well into their 20s but a rising number are now choosing to live their brother or sister. On the one hand this is evidence of the loving strength of family ties. On the other hand, this might be a practical response to the need for extended parental support: if a brother and sister live together then there is better scope for financial support for that household from the parents.”
There may also be cultural dividends, according to Mr Salt, from migrants of an Asian or Mediterranean background, whose upbringing places a particular emphasis on keeping generations of families close together, often under the one roof.
Other notable rises in living arrangements occurred in same-sex de facto couples, increasing by 30 per cent for men and 34 per cent for women.
Lone-parent families rose almost 10 per cent while married couples were still the most common living arrangement, accounting for about 7.6 million people. The number of siblings choosing to live together outside the family home also rose by more than 14 per cent, to more than 215,000.
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