Eden’s population has grown by 37 people in the past five years according to the 2011 Census.
On Census night in 2011, 3043 people were recorded in Eden with 3006 people recorded in 2006.
And we’re older!
The median age in Eden was 46 in 2011, three years older than the 2006 median age.
Feeling depressed? But wait, there’s more...
Our median weekly household income in 2011 was $784 compared to $653 in 2006. Take into account CPI and a median weekly household income across the Bega Valley of $848, a median weekly household income across NSW of $1237 a week and we’re officially the poor country cousins, even by Bega Valley standards.
Don’t send any money yet... because you’ll need it for your mortgage and rent increases.
Our monthly mortgage repayments have risen from $1000 in 2006 to $1500 in 2011. That’s for those of us ‘lucky enough’ to have a mortgage.
For people paying rent in Eden, it has also risen from a median of $150 in 2006 per week to $175 in 2011.
Against this stressful backdrop it isn’t surprising that Eden also ranks above the state median when it comes to divorce. While just under half of Eden is married (45.9 per cent in 2011), under the Australian median of 48.7per cent, 9.5 per cent are divorced compared to a national average of 8.4 per cent.
Compared to the Australian average of 14.3 per cent, only 3.4 per cent of the Eden population has university or tertiary qualifications.
On the bright side, we’re great volunteers. Twenty-one point two per cent of us do volunteer work against an Australian median of 17.8 per cent.
These quick findings are some of the early statistics to emerge from the The Australian Bureau of Statistics release of its first lot of data from the 2011 Census of Population and Housing on Monday and while some of the results were surprising, most for Eden were fairly predictable, as shown above.
For more analysis of the 2011 Census, go to edenmagnet.com.au