Australia Sees First Population Drop Since World War I

The Australian Bureau of Statistics said the population grew by less than one percent in the year to September 2020, and actually declined in the last recorded quarter.

Australia's population has declined for the first time in more than a century as pandemic-induced border closures stemmed the flow of overseas migrants, according to figures released Thursday. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said the population grew by less than one percent in the year to September 2020, and actually declined in the last recorded quarter. "The last time we saw population decline was the year to December 1916, during World War I," said the bureau's demography director, Phil Browning. For centuries, Australia's economic growth has been built on mining and agriculture and fuelled by several waves of mass migration from Europe, Asia and beyond.