Canberra's population mix will help shield the city from ageing demographic challenges felt elsewhere in Australia, according to the authors of a new report on the country's regions.
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But slow overall income growth has seen the capital slip eight places over the past three years on the list ranking each region's average household wealth.
The State of the Regions report released on Sunday showed ACT families have the highest average disposable income and a below-average percentage of social security claimants in all benefits except Youth Allowance.
The report, prepared by National Economics on behalf of the Australian Local Government Association, showed the population growth of retirement-age Canberrans was only slightly higher than that of younger residents over the past five years.
On average, the city grew by some 5770 people, of which 2773 were aged 54 or under.
By contrast, the Southern Inland region of NSW circling the ACT saw a population increase over the same period of 1922 people aged 55 or over, but with an average loss of 230 younger residents.
The report is not all good news for Canberrans, however, with the city sliding from first to fourth in rankings for the average hourly rate of work between 2011 and 2016, while the territory also fell from ninth to 14th in overall income during the same period.
Property prices have also pushed Canberra from 21st to 15th on the list of average established dwelling prices between 1998 and 2016.
National Economics executive director Dr Peter Brain said Canberra's status and outlook was best described as "solid" when compared to other regions.
He said the territory appeared to be bouncing back from slow economic growth in recent years.
"Total hours is pretty stagnant, which means more of the jobs are casual and part time and household income is pretty stagnant," he said.
"Your population growth is fairly balanced between older and younger people, and that sets you apart from a lot of regions. It's good for the future."
The Australian Local Government Association said the report showed "Australia could better exploit the potential of its existing knowledge-economy regions by appropriate infrastructure investments", while also focused on decentralising jobs in such an economy.
"Further decentralisation is likely to be incremental – from metropolitan centres into inner suburbs and into regional capital cities which have already established themselves as outposts of the knowledge economy," the report said.
"It will require infrastructure support, especially investment in telecommunications and transport."
Dr Brain said areas like Canberra, which already had a primarily knowledge-based economy and strong infrastructure to support it, would not necessarily be disadvantaged by such a transition.
He said while Canberra would not have its competitiveness slowed by lower growth rates, the city could model itself on Ottawa, following the lead of the Canadian capital's tech boom.
"People used to call [Ottawa] the Silicon Valley of the north; that's your role model," he said.
"There's no reason you can't accelerate that as well with your existing assets."