We had a council contact us recently, wanting to understand how the population of 0-4 year olds had changed every year since the last Census. This data is possible to get from the ABS, but it's not currently in our community profiles.
Glenn's Answer
I understand you are looking at growth in 0-4 year olds in the intercensal years (between the 2011 and 2016 Censuses).
The ABS publishes Estimated Resident Population by Age and Sex every year (Catalogue 3235.0). This is normally released in August, for the June before last. Ie. the latest figures are just released June 2018, came out on the 29th of August.
The main datasets just show the latest year.
But the ABS.Stat service shows the last 18 years of change, though you need to manipulate the table a little bit to get the years and area you want. It is done at SA2 and LGA level only, not for the .id small areas.
Here is the relevant link for the latest dataset. Note that the last 2 years data are provisional (subject to change with future releases).
I hope this helps! Make sure you don’t compare directly with the Census data, as ERP is usually higher (even in the Census year).
Learn more about the difference between ERP, Usual residence and enumerated population here.