Overall, 30.9 per cent of respondents to the NATSISS aged 15 years and over indicated that they had moved to live in another dwelling/house/place in the 12 months before the survey, with the true value (at the 95% confidence level) lying somewhere between 28.9 and 32.9 per cent. In light of the comments made above about the inclusive nature of the survey question, this is a surprisingly low proportion. This is especially true when benchmarked against 1996 and 2001 census results that show broadly similar propensities for movement for the same age group (29% and 26%) for the periods 1995–96 and 2000–01 respectively. Equally surprising, given the open-ended nature of the NATSISS mobility question, is that only a quarter of respondents who moved reported making more than one move over the 12 months before the survey.

Like all other demographic processes, change of residence is associated with age and certain life-cycle statuses and transitions (Long 1992). To investigate the age pattern of migration, Figure 5.1 compares age-specific movement rates from the NATSISS with equivalent rates derived from the 1996 and 2001 censuses. Clearly, the age pattern of movement derived from the NATSISS is in broad agreement with census results, in so far as movement comes to a peak among young adults aged 20–24 years and steadily declines thereafter. Overall, these patterns conform with more or less universal observations first made by Rogers, Raquillet & Castro (1978) and Rogers & Castro (1981) for the United States and Europe, and subsequently in the Australian context by Bell (1992, 1995). Basically, for the Australian population as a whole, as in other countries, the peak in the age profile of mobility has been linked to the combined influence of departure from the parental home, the start of tertiary education, entry into the labour force and the establishment of independent living arrangements. To the extent that Indigenous people participate in these same life-course events, the age profile of Indigenous movement is likely to reflect similar influences. In the subsequent section, we examine the gross and net effects of such variables on movement propensity.

What Figure 5.1 shows is that mobility rates derived from NATSISS are consistently higher than census rates (especially 2001 Census rates) up to age 50, beyond which point the NATSISS pattern becomes relatively erratic, possibly due to the small sample size. Reading these sets of rates together, perhaps the more interesting observation is the consistent reduction in age-specific movement rates between the 1996 and 2001 censuses and the apparent increase from the 2002 NATSISS. This appears to be similar to other systematic shifts in Indigenous demographic indicators revealed by census analysis that are difficult to reconcile with demographic behaviour (Kinfu & Taylor 2005).