There was a time in South Africa when quite a few white families just upped and left, moving their lives to Australia, to avoid South Africa’s ‘inevitable’ downfall. I lost so many friends to that country.

Now it’s just over 20 years later and, well, South Africa may be nearing that downfall, but we’re hanging in there.

*Fingers crossed*

Back in April a national survey announced that South Africa’s white population had decreased, either due to awful fertility rates or emigration, but they also announced that emigration stats had lowered as well. Read all about that over HERE.

So just how many of those people who emigrated chose to make Australia home?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics have just released their latest figures, announcing that around 178 700 South Africans are living in their country, a number that has increased by 33 000 since the last set of figures they released back in 2011.

This means South Africans now represent 0.8% of the Australian population.

One for our neighbours from the north – research showed that more than 7,500 Zimbabweans lived in Perth in 2011.

The 2011 data, which had more in-depth information on all Australian migrants, showed that…

as many 82.5% of migrants from SA had settled in the major cities. As many as 31,680 South Africans were living in Sydney, while 28,700 lived in Perth in 2011 – behind only UK and New Zealand migrants. Melbourne had 20,968 South African migrants.

Shout out if you’re one of those migrants who returned to South Africa.

[source: businesstech]