Canberra: The growth of religions having roots in India has been phenomenal in Australia during the recent years.
Sikhism, the youngest religion founded in India and Hinduism, an ancient Indian religion, are the fastest growing religions in Australia, growing 500 percent and 300 percent respectively in the past ten years.
The percentage of people born in India has grown to 1.9 percent of the population from 1.4 percent in 2011.
While Hinduism grew from 0.3 percent of the total population in 1991 to 1.9 percent (440,300) in 2016, the growth of Sikhism has been even swifter.
The religion grew over 500 percent in since the 2006 census when it was just 0.1 percent of the total population.
The 2016 Census result has revealed its growth to 129,900, which is 0.5 percent of the total population.
The 2011 Census recorded 72,296 Sikhs in Australia, 0.3 percent of the total population.
On the night of Census, 23,401,892 people were counted. This figure is 8.8 percent up from the last Census in 2011. The total population of Australia in 1991 was 16.77 million.
During the last five years, Australia has added 1.3 million new migrants who call Australia their home. Though these migrants come from 180 countries with China (191,000) and India (163,000) being the most common countries of birth of the new arrivals.
The number of people born in India has grown to 455,389, 1.9 percent of the population from 295,389 (1.4 percent of the population) in 2011.
Christianity still remains the most common religion (52 percent of the population), the number of people who chose “no religion” is on the rise with nearly a third of Australians expressing this. At many as 20 percent of all Australians exercised this option compared to 22 percent in the last Census.
(Source: sbs.com.au)