Low overseas migration: A quick guide to the potential impacts on local populations

Australia’s international border restrictions have led to a sharp fall in overseas migration and, consequently, slowing population growth in 2019–20, 2020–21 and 2021–22. This decreased population growth is likely to be uneven across geographic regions, especially in the short-term. This quick guide explores the uneven contribution overseas migration has made to past population growth in Australian capital cities and rest-of-state areas. This helps to understand where the current slowing in overseas migration will have the greatest impact. The quick guide also presents analysis of the 2019–20 Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Regional Population data release, which includes information about the population impact on different locations in the early stages of the pandemic.