Punjabi Australians

Ethnic group in Australia

Punjabi Australians
Total population
239,033 (2021)^[1]
Regions with significant populations
Victoria	56,171 (2016)^[2]
New South Wales	33,435 (2016)^[2]
Queensland	17,991 (2016)^[2]
Western Australia	12,223 (2016)^[2]
South Australia	9,306 (2016)^[2]
Australian Capital Territory	2,215 (2016)^[2]
Northern Territory	670 (2016)^[2]
Tasmania	489 (2016)^[2]
Languages
Punjabi · Hindi · Urdu · English
Religion
Sikhism · Hinduism · Islam
Related ethnic groups
Indian Australians · Pakistani Australians

Punjabi Australians are Australians who are of Punjabi descent. According to the 2016 census, Punjabi is one of the fastest-growing languages in Australia, with 132,499 individuals identifying as Punjabi-speakers.^[2]^[3] This is an increase from 71,230 individuals in 2011 and 26,000 individuals in 2006, representing a five-fold growth in 10 years.^[2]

Demographics

When ordered state-wise, the largest population of Punjabis is in Victoria (56,171 individuals), followed by New South Wales (33,435), Queensland (17,991), Western Australia (12,223), South Australia (9,306), the Australian Capital Territory (2,215), the Northern Territory (670) and Tasmania (489). Over 40 percent of Punjabi Australians are between the age bracket of 25 to 34 years.^[2] 55.6% of Punjabis are males and 44.4% are females, compared to the national average of 49.3% and 50.7% respectively.^[4] Most Punjabi-speakers earned a weekly income of $800 to $999. 8.9% of Punjabi men stated they did not earn an income, compared to 30.3% of women.^[4]

According to the 2016 census, out of the people who identified as Punjabi-speakers, the vast majority declared themselves as Sikhs (108,276 people, comprising 82.9%), followed by Hindus (16,546 people, comprising 12.7%) and Muslims (1,495 people, comprising 1.1%), while 2,214 individuals declared no religion (1.7%).^[2]

78.1% (102,661 people) of Punjabi-speakers listed India as their country of birth, followed by 17.3% (22,808 people) in Australia; 0.9% (1,192 people) in Pakistan (separately, Pakistani Australians had a population of 61,913 in the 2016 census);^[5] and another 0.9% (1,163 people) in Malaysia.^[2] Punjabi was the most commonly spoken mother tongue amongst Indian Australians, with 22 percent of all Indian-born Australians stating they spoke Punjabi at home; it was followed by Hindi, Malayalam and Gujarati.^[6] Punjabi is also amongst the top ten most spoken languages of Australia, and the seventh most common language in Melbourne, where it is spoken by 1.2% of the city's population.^[4] Over 90 percent of Punjabi-speakers reported that they spoke English "very well" or "well".^[4]

The suburb of Craigieburn in Victoria had one of the largest proportion of Punjabis, where 3,937 people or 9.8% of people identified as Punjabi, followed by Blacktown in New South Wales, where 3,243 people or 8.1% of people were Punjabis.^[4] The farming town of Woolgoolga in upper New South Wales is home to one of the earliest and largest Punjabi Sikh populations in regional Australia, dating back to the start of the 20th century.^[7] It was also the site of Australia's first gurdwara.^[7]

Notable people

See also: Category:Australian people of Punjabi descent

References

^ "Snapshot of Australia: A picture of the economic, social and cultural make-up of Australia on Census Night, 10 August 2021". Australian Bureau of Statistics. 28 June 2022. Retrieved 8 August 2023.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m Singh, Manpreet K. (9 July 2017). "Find out more about the Punjabi speakers of Australia". SBS News. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
^ Kainth, Shamsher (11 August 2017). "Punjabi fastest growing language in Australia: Harinder Sidhu". SBS News. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Singh, Manpreet K. (4 September 2020). "Census 2016: Presenting a profile of the Punjabi community in Australia". SBS News. Retrieved 10 August 2020.
^ Nabi, Zain (27 June 2017). "Number of Australians born in Pakistan doubles". SBS News. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
^ Singh, Manpreet K. (6 December 2019). "Punjabi is the most spoken language among India-born Australians". SBS News. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
^ ^a ^b Asri, Vivek (8 June 2017). "Woolgoolga, the story behind Australia's earliest Indian community". SBS News. Retrieved 10 August 2020.

Punjabi diaspora

Asia

Elsewhere

See also

Sub-diasporas	Baloch Hazara Azad Kashmiri Kashmiri Pashtun Punjabi Saraiki Sindhi
Related articles	Anti-Pakistan sentiment Foreign relations Diplomatic missions Immigration to Pakistan Little Pakistan Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Pakistani nationality law Pakistani passport Pakistani students Visa requirements for Pakistani citizens

v t e Asian Australians
Central Asia^[1]	Afghan Hazara Armenian Azeri Georgian Kazakh Kyrgyz Pathan Tatar Tajik Turkmen Uzbek Uyghur
East Asia	Chinese Fuzhou/Hokchiu Hakka Hoklo Hong Konger Tibetan Japanese Korean Mongolian Taiwanese
South Asia	Bangladeshi Bengali Bhutanese Indian Indo-Fijian Bengali Gujarati Malayali Punjabi Sindhi Tamil Telugu Maldivian Nepalese Pakistani Baloch Pashtun Punjabi Sindhi Sri Lankan Tamil
Southeast Asia	Burmese Mon Chin Cambodian East Timorese Filipino Hmong Indonesian Javanese Madurese Sundanese Acehnese Balinese Karen Laotian Malaysian Bruneian Kadazan Temoq Mien Singaporean Thai Vietnamese
History	General Immigration
Topics	Organized crime Politics Stereotypes East Asians South Asians
According to Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ASCCEG)[1] Category Commons

v t e Ancestry of Australians
Ancestral background of Australian citizens
Indigenous	Aboriginal Australians Torres Strait Islanders
Africa	Angolan Beninese Burundian Cameroonian Congolese Eritrean Ethiopian Gabonese Gambian Ghanaian Guinean Ivorian Kenyan Liberian Malawian Malian Mauritian Nigerian Rwandan Senegalese Sierra Leonean South African Tanzanian Togolese Ugandan Zambian Zimbabwean
Americas	American Canadian Caribbean and West Indian Australian Hispanic and Latin American Argentine Bolivian Brazilian Chilean Colombian Cuban Ecuadorian Guatemalan Honduran Mexican Panamanian Paraguayan Peruvian Puerto Rican Salvadoran Uruguayan Venezuelan Jamaican Trinidadian and Tobagonian
Asia	Afghan Hazara Pashtun Armenian Azerbaijani Bangladeshi Bengali Bhutanese Burmese Chin Karen Mon Cambodian Chinese Hmong Hong Kong Cantonese Mien Taiwanese Hakka Fuzhou/Hokchiu Hoklo Tibetan Uyghur East Timorese Filipino Georgian Indian Bengali Gujarati Indo-Fijian Malayali Punjabi Sindhi Tamil Telugu Indonesian Acehnese Balinese Javanese Madurese Sundanese Japanese Kazakh Korean Kyrgyz Laotian Malaysian Bruneian Kadazan Temoq Maldivian Mongolian Nepali Pakistani Baloch Hazara Pashtun Punjabi Sindhi Pathan Singaporean Sri Lankan Tamil Tajik Tatar Thai Turkmen Uzbek Vietnamese Hmong Mien
Europe	Albanian Anglo-Celtic Cornish English Irish Northern Irish Scottish Welsh Austrian Belgian Belarusian Bosnian Bulgarian Croatian Cypriot Czech Danish Dutch Estonian French Finnish German Greek Hungarian Icelandic Italian Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Maltese Montenegrin Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romani Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovene Spanish Swedish Swiss Ukrainian
Middle East and North Africa	Arab Algerian Bahraini Egyptian Emirati Iraqi Jordanian Kuwaiti Lebanese Libyan Moroccan Palestinian Saudi Somali Syrian Tunisian Assyrian Bari Berber Coptic Chaldean Darfur Dinka Iranian Israeli/Jewish Kurdish Mandaean Nubian Nuer South Sudanese Sudanese Turkish Yezidi
Oceania	Fijian Indo-Fijian Niuean Ni-Vanuatu New Zealander Māori Papua New Guinean Samoan South Sea Islander Tongan
according to Reflecting a Nation: Stories from the 2011 Census, 2012–2013 and Census of Population and Housing: Reflecting Australia - Stories from the Census, 2016

^ According to the local classification, South Caucasian peoples (Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Georgians) belong not to the European but to the "Central Asian" group, despite the fact that the territory of Transcaucasia has nothing to do with Central Asia and geographically belongs mostly to Western Asia.