Although Territory women have been outnumbered for decades, enjoying the highest ratio of men to women in the country, it seems many of them are still struck by the old proverb: the odds are good, but the goods are odd.
Not so for Queensland-based questioner Katherine, who’s had a different personal experience.
“I’ve had a couple of friends that’ve gone to work up in Darwin and both of them have come back married,” she said.
“I just wondered if there was something about the Territory or Darwin in particular, that that kind of thing happens more easily.”
Is it something in the water?
This story is part of Curious Darwin, our series where you ask us the questions, vote for your favourite, and we investigate. You can submit your questions on any topic at all, or vote on our next investigation.
Katherine asked Curious Darwin to take a look at the demographics.
Her query isn’t personal, but it is altruistic.
“I guess I’ve got a lot of single female friends and some of them are starting to get into their late 30s, early 40s now in Brisbane, and I’m just wondering if we should send them up north,” she said.
Prisons and workers’ camps skewing the numbers
At the last Census, in 2016, the NT population was 51.8 per cent male and 48.2 per cent female, with a median age of 32.
Nationally, the population was 49.3 per cent male and 50.7 per cent female.
Four of the five postcodes Australia-wide with the highest male-to-female ratio were in Darwin and the greater rural area.
Howard Springs, outside of Darwin, tops the list, followed by Darwin City, Weddell, and then Larrakeyah, home to a significant Defence force barracks.
Closer to Alice Springs, the Sandover-Plenty region — population 4,456, median age 30.7 — rounds out the top five.
There’s a couple of factors that could skew the ratio in those post codes.
Howard Springs is home to Manigurr-Ma Village, a workers’ camp for Inpex, whose $47 billion Ichthys project at one stage employed 8,000 workers.
That project has now moved into its production phase, employed far fewer people, but at the time of the 2016 Census was still under peak construction.
The Darwin Correctional Centre also falls within the boundaries of Howard Springs.
Territory-wide, there are far more men in prison than women — the population is 93 per cent male, with 1,520 men compared to 114 women as of June 2018 — and the Darwin Correctional Centre has an average population that is almost double that of the Alice Springs Correctional Centre.
The skew towards men in the NT population harks back to the Territory’s history, said demographer Andrew Taylor, from Charles Darwin University.
“This goes back to the sorts of reasons places like Darwin are settled — commonly for strategic military purposes, for resource things, or to just have a presence in the north of developed countries,” he said.
“Through time, as the places become contemporary settlements, we still see that reflected in the population characteristics.”
Dr Taylor said it was very difficult to measure a precise economic impact.
For example, he said, rates of crime for males are higher, males are worse at saving, so they may not be contributing the economy in those ways, and the social networks that males develop are more limited.
“If there’s that imbalance, your stock of females is lower, and given that we’re a younger population, that can impact on the birth rate,” Dr Taylor said.
“Overall, males are a higher turnover part of the population, so it contributes to our churn in some respects, and that has economic costs through businesses and others needing to re-fill jobs all the time.”
Female majority in resources-dominated Canadian province
Dr Taylor referred to other remote, northern provinces overseas that had similar demographics to the Northern Territory, such as the far eastern province of Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada.
The ratio of men to women was fairly evenly split in the region — and in fact, women account for just over 50 per cent of the population, a majority, said Linda Ross, chief executive of the Newfoundland and Labrador Provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women.
But she said the economy of the province is largely resourced-based, focusing on the offshore oil and mining industries.
“In order for any of the mega projects to receive approval in the province they must include Women’s Employment Plans that include women working across all employment fields, as well as a commitment to increase the numbers of women in those fields.”
The evacuation of Darwin
There was a time when the ratio of men to women in the city of Darwin was skewed in its extreme.
In the weeks before Darwin was bombed by Japanese forces in February 1942, it was becoming increasingly clear it was going to be a target, so authorities ordered the evacuation of women and children, old and sick residents, beginning in December 1941.
Official war history recorded that a mere 2,500 people remained in Darwin two months later.
Women who wanted to stay could avoid evacuation by taking jobs considered to be essential, such as typist positions with the army.
Journalist, soldier, and later author Douglas Lockwood wrote in his book Australia’s Pearl Harbour: Darwin 1942 that by February 18, 1942 — the day before the bombing — there were only 63 women left in the city.
He wrote of the hundreds more people that fled following the “destruction and terror” of the Japanese attack.
Mr Lockwood wrote of one group of Top Enders not ordered to evacuate: Aboriginal people, who were instead ordered to “go bush”.
In 2012, 70 years since the bombing of Darwin, historian and researcher Don Christopherson told ABC Radio Darwin about the selective evacuation of Aboriginal people from Darwin.
Those who had both Aboriginal and European heritage were evacuated — others were not.
There were also Aboriginal people living on country in the Top End, like the Tiwi Islands and Milingimbi, who were not evacuated.
Many Aboriginal people did labour for the army throughout the rest of the war, though often Mr Chistopherson said they were paid ‘in kind’, with goods like tobacco, rather than official wages.
There were also the Northern Territory Special Reconnaissance Unit, which patrolled the Arnhem Land Coast on the lookout for any sign of Japanese landings.
They were trained to fight as guerrillas if there was an invasion.
Those in this unit weren’t officially enlisted, and it was only in 1992 that the Federal Government formally acknowledged them with service medals and pay.
Things can turn around
The Northern Territory’s population strategy — released off the back of its ‘Boundless Possible’ campaign — is trying to entice families and needed professionals to the north with financial incentives.
The NT Government has commissioned further research into how to attract early career women, a key target demographic.
The proportion of men to women traditionally reflected employment patterns, said Andrew Howe, demographer with the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
“When we look back on the 1970s and 80s, the NT’s population really grew, especially from interstate migration, with people coming from other parts of Australia attracted by employment prospects which were traditionally more attractive to men rather than women,” he said.
The NT’s sex ratio is slowly approaching an equal number, he said.
“Again, looking back into the 70s in the NT, we had roughly five men to every four women, or a sex ratio of 125 which has gradually come down to 108.”
Recent ABS population projections anticipate the sex ratio approaching a more even split.
“But where it does get a bit fancy, a bit technical … we consider those trends in terms of fertility, mortality, and migration, so the combined effects of those trends.”
Alice Springs bucking the trend with the arts, health
Darwin may have been a male-dominated city since it was founded, but Alice Springs managed to buck the trend a couple of censuses back.
“Once you start digging down to individual towns and so on, things can change; even at the Territory level the ratio is declining or becoming more balanced very slowly,” Dr Taylor said.
“Because we’re a small population that can flip easily, that’s why the arrival of a relatively small number of females into Alice Springs for health jobs and in the arts sector led to their population flipping.
There is also a higher ratio of women to men in remote Aboriginal communities.
In Tanami, Central Australia, there are 88.6 males for every 100 females, and Yuendumu-Anmatjere, had 88.7 men for every 100 women.
Women on the street at Howard Springs didn’t seem particularly bothered by the numbers.
“[We’ve] got heaps of mums at school and stuff, so I don’t really see too much of a difference really,” one woman told the ABC when she was asked if she notices a lot of men around the suburb.
“Maybe at the pub, few more blokes there.”
Another woman said: “I don’t really notice. I don’t pay attention … I’ve got children so I’m more making sure they’re still alive.”
One bloke we spoke to hadn’t heard the statistic for his area.
“I’m glad I’ve got a partner then, by the sounds of things,” he responded.
https://amp.abc.net.au/article/10709740