Korean Australians


Korean Australians are Australian citizens who trace their Korean ancestry and identify themselves as an immigrant to or a descendant born in Australia.

History

There is some evidence of the presence of a small number of Koreans in Australia as early as 1920. While it is unclear what prompted their arrival they may have been the children of Australian Protestant missionaries who began work in Korea around 1885. A few also came to Australia between 1921 and 1941 for education. Additionally, scant evidence of individual Koreans living in areas of Australia like Broome in the years prior to the Second World War has also been recorded. Three Korean speakers in the 2021 Australian census listed 1945 as their year of arrival in Australia, which could be further evidence of early Korean immigration to Australia.
During World War II, an unknown number of Koreans who had been arrested in Allied countries across the Asia–Pacific Region were transported to Australia and interned alongside Japanese and Formosans for the duration of the war. Most Korean internees carried Japanese names, and were thus difficult to identify.
When the Korean War ended, in between 1951 and 1960, 20 Koreans came to Australia. The relaxation of immigration restrictions in the late 1960s provided the first opportunity for larger numbers of Koreans to enter Australia. In 1969, the first Korean immigrants arrived in Sydney under the Skilled Migration Program. However, there were only 468 Korean born people recorded as living in Australia at the time of the 1971 Census.
In the early 1970s, about 1000 Koreans arrived each year for short-term stays and around 100 arrived for permanent residence. Some of these new arrivals subsequently sponsored family members for migration. Between 1976 and 1985, around 500 Korea-born immigrants arrived each year resulting in the number of Korea-born living in Australia increasing more than sixfold between the 1976 Census and the 1986 Census.
From 1986 to 1991, there was a further increase in settler arrivals, with an average of about 1400 each year, many coming under the Skilled and Business migration categories. More than half of the Korea-born in Australia have arrived in the last ten years, including as students.

Demographics

As of the 2021 census, 102,789 persons resident in Australia identified themselves as being of Korean ancestry. 102,096 persons resident in Australia had been born in South Korea. 49.6% declared holding Australian citizenship. 14.2% of them came to Australia in the 1990s, 36.4% in the 2000s, 17.6% in the 2011-2015, and 16.7% in 2016-2021s. They make up 1.4% of the 7.5 million of the residents from overseas, and 0.4% out of the entire 25.7 million population.
The majority reside in New South Wales. Few ethnic groups are as concentrated in one state as Koreans are in New South Wales, where 33% of Australia's population live.
In 2021, 41,316 Korean-born Australian residents self-identified as "No Religion," 19,400 as Presbyterian or Reformed, 17,156 as Catholic, 6,506 as Uniting Church, and 4,244 as "Christianity, not further defined." Koreans have often created their own religious organizations in Australia, due to language and cultural barriers, and not always being welcomed by the mainstream population. The first Korean Buddhist temple was established in 1986. The first Korean Christian church was established in 1974 and by 2009, 151 exist in Sydney and about the same elsewhere in Australia.

Notable people