CANBERRA, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- The population of indigenous Australians is expected to grow by 25 percent over the next nine years, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people will top 1 million in the next nine years, up from about 800,000 currently.
However, the proportion of those aged 65 and older is expected to double from 4 to 8 percent by 2031.
It also projects that 40 percent of indigenous Australians will live in a major city by 2031, up from 37 percent in 2016, while the proportion of those living in remote areas will fall from 19 to 15 percent.
"One of the biggest things about the population changes is that it means more Aboriginal people than ever in high school, more than ever moving out of high school into tertiary education and becoming professional people in mainstream Australia," Lisa Jackson Pulver, the deputy vice chancellor of indigenous strategy at the University of Sydney, told News Corp Australia.
"It's good for all of us to have that diversity."
Data released by the ABS in November showed that the life expectancy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in 2015-17 was 75.6 years for females and 71.6 years for males. That of indigenous peoples in remote and very remote areas was 69.6 years for women and 65.9 years for men.
"The life expectancy at birth of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men in 2015-2017 was 8.6 years lower than for non-Indigenous men, while that of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women was 7.8 years lower than that of non-Indigenous women," Anthony Grubb, the director of Demography at the ABS, said at the time.
