Here we reveal insight into the range of Australia’s larger CALD (Culturally and Linguistically Diverse) communities. Drawing on the Origins Base File representing more than 18m Australian Adults, we take a geographical look at the Origins CALD Communities.
Where do we find Australia’s CALD Communities?
The degree of spatial concentration of a community gives a good indication of ‘Cultural Cling’ – the extent to which a cultural community is closely knit, or internally dependent upon aspects that characterise the community.
This dependency may include proximity to specialist foods, places of worship or the enduring strength of family and kinship ties that facilitate ‘word of mouth’ recommendations for goods and services. It is also an indicator of the extent of integration into mainstream Australian society.
Typically, migrant cultural groups who are most ‘like’ the host community (ie low ‘cultural distance’), tend to disperse more readily from their initial places of settlement. Those at a greater cultural distance tend to persist longer in core areas, often for many generations.
We have created a measure of spatial concentration that identifies the percent of the national adult population found in Mesh Blocks making up 80% of each community’s population.
For example, taking the Afro-Arabic Community: Mesh Blocks containing the top 80% of Afro-Arabic (ranked by occurrence) contain 17.06% of Australia’s adult population. Hence, 80/17.06 gives a ratio, or index, of 4.69. This ratio can then be compared with other communities to assess the relative dispersion of people belonging to each community.
The following chart shows the Spatial Concentration Index for each community, ranked from least dispersed to most dispersed.
Source: Origins Data 2019
The chart shows that the Turkish, Jewish and Vietnamese communities are the least dispersed. This mix suggests that spatial concentration is not just associated with recency of arrival – indeed, both the East Asian and South Asian communities, among the most recent and largest communities, show considerably more dispersal.
Maps of Australia’s CALD Communities
View the following gallery of maps for Melbourne and Sydney to see the top quintile areas for each CALD community in our two largest cities
Over the years, we have produced a series of reports telling the stories of selected migrant communities in Australia. Our analysis ranges across many demographic features of each community. It also discusses some of their distinctive characteristics, considers their marketing potential and the opportunities to reach out to them. Follow the following links to see these in-depth “Spotlight on …” reports: