Serbian Australians


Serbian Australians or Serb Australians are Australians of ethnic Serb ancestry. In 2021, there were 94,997 Serbian Australians, representing one of the largest groups within the global Serb diaspora.

History

During the time of Federation a very small number of ethnic Serbs inhabited Australia. Despite a lack of accurate data, it is assumed that ethnic Serbs deriving from Lika, Dalmatia, and Montenegro did reside in largely mining communities throughout the Commonwealth, though exact numbers are unsubstantiated. The first significant, albeit small wave of Serb immigrants, comprising mostly former POWs, and displaced persons fleeing war and genocide began arriving in Australia as post-war immigrants. This initial wave also included members of the royalist Chetnik movement fleeing political persecution by the Communist regime of Josip Broz Tito.
The easing of emigration restrictions by Yugoslavia generated a second, larger wave of predominantly economic migration throughout the 1960s and 1970s. An agreement between Australia and Yugoslavia facilitated the recruitment of largely unskilled and semi-skilled immigrants, from predominantly rural backgrounds to work in Australia's manufacturing and construction industries. The developing political and economic issues in Yugoslavia during the 1980s, alongside its disintegration, ensuing wars, economic sanctions, and economic crisis of the 1990s, resulted in the largest Serbian migration to Australia.
In recent years, some Serbian Australians have joined the "Serbian Chetniks Australia" organisation. This organization promoting the concept of Chetnik forces fighting against the Nazi forces in Yugoslavia during the World War II has participated in Anzac Day marches in Melbourne and Sydney which drew criticism from the Croatian Australian and Bosnian Australian communities.

Demographics

According to data from the 2021 census, 94,997 people stated that they had Serb ancestry, out of which 25,454 were Serbia-born. Serbian Australians comprise 0.37% of total Australian population.
The Serbian Australian community is heavily concentrated in New South Wales and Victoria, with major hubs in Sydney's south-eastern suburbs and Melbourne's western and south-eastern suburbs.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics allows the provision of two ancestries in a multi-response question for foreign-born residents. In the 2016 census, 67% of Serbian Australians declared full Serb ancestry, 11.8% of individuals identifying as Serb in the first response comprised 11.8%, whilst 21.1% declared Serb heritage in the second response.
Serbian Australians predominantly belong to the Eastern Orthodoxy with the Serbian Orthodox Church as the traditional church. Some 13.3% adhere to Protestantism, 7% to the Catholicism, while the rest are mainly irreligious.
Language retention is high: only 15.6% speak English exclusively at home, while 68.5% are proficient in English alongside another language.
Education levels are solid, with 21.6% holding a bachelor's degree or higher and 13.8% at Certificate III level.

Notable people