The Redfern-Waterloo area has a population of 19,194.
Redfern and Waterloo are the most densely
populated with a population of 11,202 and 5,202 respectively, followed by Darlington and Eveleigh. There are approximately 759
Aboriginal people living in the area, representing 3.9 percent of the total
population. Key socio-economic characteristics of the Redfern and Waterloo population are
summarised below based on 2001 Australian Bureau of Statistics census data.
Population
- Waterloo has an
older age profile than Redfern and Sydney generally. The median age for Waterloo is 45 years, while for Redfern the median
age is 35, which reflects Sydney’s
median age of 34. Within Waterloo
37 percent of residents are aged 55 and over. - Waterloo has a very
high proportion of single parent families, comprising 46 percent of all
families, compared to Redfern (19 percent) and Sydney (15 percent). - Redfern
and Waterloo have smaller households than Sydney generally.
People living alone appear at twice the rate in Redfern and three times
the rate in Waterloo than for the Sydney region. - Redfern
and Waterloo have markedly higher
proportions of overseas born residents than Sydney as a whole. Within Redfern 37
percent of the population are overseas born, while in Waterloo the figure is 43 percent.
Employment
- Waterloo has a very
high proportion of people over 15 years of age not in the labour force (59
percent) and persons employed at less than half the rate of Redfern and
Sydney as a whole. In Redfern the proportion of people not in the labour
force (30 percent) is similar to Sydney.
Unemployment in Redfern and Waterloo (7.6
percent in Redfern and 16.6 percent in Waterloo), was higher than the state
average (7.2 percent). - • In
the Redfern-Waterloo operational area, the number of people employed in
the area has decreased from 15,207 in 1981 to 12,502 in 2001.
Income
- Within
Waterloo
the majority of households (56 percent) have a weekly income less than
$400, of these, 25 percent have less than $200 per week. The income levels
for Redfern reflect the gentrification process with concentrations of high
and low income households. Within Redfern 28.9 percent of households have
a weekly income of less than $400 and 39.2 percent of households earn
$1,000 or more.
Housing Tenure
- Rental
accommodation dominates tenure type for Redfern (55 percent) and Waterloo (79.6 percent), unlike Sydney as a whole where 29 percent of
dwellings are rented and 62.7 percent of dwellings are either owned or
purchased. - Within
Waterloo,
92 percent of all housing is public housing, while in Redfern there is considerably
less public housing at 29 percent.
Housing Type
- Redfern
and Waterloo have very low proportions of
free-standing dwellings compared to Sydney
as a whole. Redfern has more semi-detached dwellings (31.8 percent) than Waterloo, which has
predominantly flats and units (75.2 percent).