Abstract
The author presents a multistate model for projecting regional populations by Indigenous status. Previous methods employed to project the Australian Indigenous population did not model interaction between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations, in large part because of serious data deficiencies. Improvements in data coverage and quality, particularly in the Northern Territory, now permit the effective use of conceptually preferable multistate methods. The multistate model presented in this paper explicitly incorporates identification change and, in contrast to previous modelling which has assumed all offspring of mixed Indigenous/non-Indigenous couples to be Indigenous, permits babies born to mixed couples to be ascribed either Indigenous or non-Indigenous identities. A hybrid directional–net-migration approach is taken to the modelling of internal migration. Illustrative projections are presented for the Northern Territory.
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