Queenslanders have battled a housing crisis and a pandemic in recent years with the latest census data revealing how the Sunshine State has evolved.
The latest release of 2021 Census data reveals some of the key changes, from how many people now own their own home to who they are living with.
Changes in who owns what we live in
While the total number of people who own a home has increased, overall the percentage of home owners in the state has decreased.
In 1996, about 460,000 Queensland homes were owned outright while in 2021 that rose to about 543,000.
"The proportion of dwellings that are owned outright was 33.7 per cent only five years ago, and that's dropped down to 29.1 per cent in 2021," 2021 Census dissemination director Caroline Deans said.
"The really big growth has been in the number of dwellings that are owned with a mortgage — more than doubling."
Since the 2016 Census, homes owned with a mortgage increased from 33.7 per cent to 34.4 per cent.
"And that's due to all the extra dwelling stock that has come on in the last five years," she said.
Demographer Elin Charles-Edwards, from the University of Queensland, said the ongoing shift in home ownership was "one of the more concerning results from the census".
"That's really tied to housing affordability," she said.
"The Australian dream still really is to own your own home."
Dr Charles-Edwards said younger people were also acquiring mortgages later and longer.
"It is taking them longer to pay it off and that's reflected in the decline in the number of people buying houses outright," she said.
The driving factors of the decline for younger people were changes in lifestyles.
She said younger people often partner later in life, and delay gaining their first job due to university studies.
But the counter argument was that some people enjoyed the flexibility of renting over home ownership, Dr Charles-Edwards said.
"Particularly in younger ages and in certain populations, [they] might want to rent instead of buying," she said.
"But I think the real underlying cause here is a decline in affordability," she said.
Changes in what we live in
Ms Deans said there had been a rise in the number of residents living in semi-detached or townhouses with separate houses the most popular option for both Brisbane residents and Queenslanders overall.
"We can see that there's been a big growth in the number of dwellings over the last 20 years that are in four-or-more-storey blocks," she said.
The 2021 Census was the first time data was collected on nine-or-more-storey blocks with around 6,500 flats and apartments in nine-and-a-half-storey buildings recorded on the Gold Coast.
ABS expert Duncan Young said the growth of apartments outstripped the growth of houses in most city areas.
Dr Charles-Edwards said the availability and affordability of houses had contributed to the shift in housing types.
"There's been a big push to build medium and high-density housing so that's now become a really good option for people," she said.
"If you look at somewhere like in Brisbane, the suburb of West End, lots of people want all that amenity for being so close to the heart of the city.
"And the only real affordable option there is apartment living."
Where are Queenslanders living?
Mr Young said the population declined in Far North Queensland, Charters Towers, and outback areas by up to 10 per cent.
"There are no areas of decline in either population or dwellings across the south-east corner," he said.
But some areas saw slow population growth, such as Centenary (1.5 per cent), Sunnybank (0.8 per cent), Springwood and Kingston (2.3 per cent).
"Very different to some of our really high growth areas, so Brisbane inner — a 29 per cent growth," he said.
During that time inner Brisbane also saw 40 per cent increase in dwellings.
Dr Charles-Edwards said a natural increase in births and deaths had been steady in the state, but COVID-19 had a big impact on net migration.
Data leading up the 2021 Census, showed areas in south-east Queensland had declined in population, she said.
"Brisbane, local government area, declined for the first time probably since the First World War, so a big shock to the system," Dr Charles-Edwards said.
She said the decline was driven by the closures of international borders.
"We stopped having international migrants coming in on the scale that they had previously."
Along the south-east, the Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast maintained their growth but at a lesser rate during the pandemic.
By census night, the population had started to increase again but COVID-19 left a lasting imprint on the state's population, she said.
"It is going to take a long time to sort of get back to that pre-pandemic growth and it still have an impact 20 years out," Dr Charles-Edwards said.
Some of the regional declines were caused by out migration of young people, and an increase of mortality of an ageing population.
"But usually for those sort of regional areas, we'll see the decline, or the growth driven by migration patterns," she said.
Family dynamics
Dr Charles-Edwards said experts had anticipated the single household population would rise alongside the state's ageing population with 24.7 per cent of Queenslanders living alone, a 1.2 per cent increase from 2016.
"As our population overall gets older, you have more people who are alone due to divorce or widowhood," she said.
But despite more Queenslanders living alone, 71 per cent of the state's population still lived in a family household setting.
"As we say at the ABS, you can't choose your family, but you can count them," ABS expert Mr Young said.
He said compared to the rest of the country, Queenslanders were about 1 per cent less likely to be in a single household and 0.5 per cent more likely to be living in a family setting.
A rainbow state
In Queensland there are 14,888 same-sex couples married or in a de-facto relationship, an increase of 77 per cent since the 2016 Census.
"A huge increase, much higher than the increase in population," Mr Young said.
The rise in Queensland's same-sex couples is also higher than the national average.
"The number of same-sex couples counted increased by about 68 per cent across the whole of Australia so it is increasing faster in Queensland," he said.
Dr Charles-Edwards said the rise could be the flow-on effect of the Marriage Equality Act passing in 2017.
"People have been able to marry their long-term partners," she said.
"And this is coming through now and reflected in the official statistics."
