Intro | Gender | Diversity | References 

Introduction

Key statistics on women’s diversity and demographics are detailed below. Information regarding diverse groups of women is also available. For access to a range of sex disaggregated data sources regarding demographics and diversity, click on the Indicators in the left-hand menu.

Gender

• Women comprise almost 51% of the Australian population[1] and 51% of the Victorian population (1,333,435)[2].
• There are twice as many women (215,453) aged over 85 years as there are men (104,247)[3].
  
• 49% of Victorian women are married and 8% are in a de facto relationship[4].
• 85% Victorian women are born in Australia[5].
• 75% of Victorian women speak only English at home[6].
• 19% of Victorian women have no religion. Those that do are mainly Catholic (28%), Anglican (14%) or belong to the Uniting Church (6%)[7]. 

Diversity

Women with disabilities

• 18% of women have a disability[8].
• Of the 2.6 million carers in Australia, 68% are women[9].

Women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds

• 5.8% of Victorian women were born in Southern and Eastern Europe, and 5.7% were born in Northern and Western Europe[10].
• In Victorian, Italian is the language most often spoken at home, after English[11].

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women make up 2.3% of all Australian women[12] and 0.6% (15,397) of Victorian women[13].
• The life expectancy at birth for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women is 72.9 years compared to 82.6 years for non-Aboriginal women[14].

Samesex attracted women

• There are 8,792 female samesex couples recorded in Australian, of which 19% had children[15].

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