Abbreviated as CALD; referenced by 5 other explainers
Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) is a label used widely in Australian policy. It covers homes where a language other than English is mainly spoken, or where people, or their parents, were born overseas.
ABS does not publish a single CALD count. Place Forecast does not publish one either. The label is built up from other Census fields: country of birth, language spoken at home, year of arrival, and ancestry. ABS sums these fields to small-area counts before they are published. Place Forecast never sees the records about each person.
Under the Privacy Act 1988, ancestry is in the sensitive group. The other three fields are personal but not in the same group. None of this is a risk for Place Forecast because we work with small-area sums, not the records about each person.
Different agencies cut CALD in slightly different ways. FECCA leans on country of birth and language. AIHW and the Human Rights Commission use overlapping but not identical rules.
Not every community likes the label. It groups many distinct ancestries, languages, and migration histories under one short word, and has been called out for flattening that mix. Some councils prefer naming the group the data points to: Vietnamese-speaking homes, people born in South Sudan, and so on.
Family life in many CALD homes spans more people and more homes than the Census records as one family. Grandparents may share child care. Aunts and uncles may share rent. Adult children may stay at home a long time. ABS family and household codes cut along couple and parent lines, not along these wider patterns. So pages that count families and households can miss this part of CALD family life.
This is not a measure of need. CALD households are a wide group. They cover a wide range of incomes, work, and home set-ups. Read CALD as a short label for cultural and language diversity, not as a single profile.