USING THE CURF DATA


ABOUT THE CURF
CURF FILE NAMES
INFORMATION FILES

ABOUT THE CURF

The data included in the 2009-10 Family Characteristics Expanded CURF are released under the provisions of the Census and Statistics Act 1905. This legislation allows the Australian Statistician to release unit record data, or microdata, provided this is done “in a manner that is not likely to enable the identification of a particular person or organisation to which it relates.”

The ABS ensures the confidentiality of the data by:

• removing name, address and any other information that might uniquely identify any individual
• changing a small number of values - particularly unusual values - and removing very unusual records
• controlling the detail available for all records on the CURF
• perturbing or randomly adjusting income data
• excluding some data items that were collected
• controlling the modes of access to restrict access to more detailed data
• placing restrictions on how the data are used, supported by both information in the User Manual: Responsible Use of ABS CURFs, the undertaking signed by the head of each organisation and the terms and conditions signed by each user.

As a result, data on the CURF will not exactly match other previously published estimates. Any changes to the distribution of values are not significant and the statistical validity of aggregate data is not affected.

The 2009-10 Family Characteristics Expanded CURF contains 35,525 confidentialised respondent records from the survey. Subject to the limitations of the sample size and the data classifications used, it is possible to interrogate the CURF, produce tabulations and undertake statistical analyses to individual specifications.

CURF FILE NAMES

The FCS Expanded CURF can be accessed via the RADL and is available in SAS, SPSS and STATA formats. The CURF comprises the following files:

Data files

FC10E.CSV
This file contains the raw confidentialised survey data in hierarchical comma delimited ASCII text format.

SAS Files
These files contain the data for the CURF in SAS format.

FC10EHH.SAS7BDAT - contains the household level confidentialised survey unit record data in SAS for Windows format.
FC10EFM.SAS7BDAT - contains the family level confidentialised survey unit record data in SAS for Windows format.
FC10EPN.SAS7BDAT - contains the person level confidentialised survey unit record data in SAS for Windows format.

SPSS Files
These files contain the data for the CURF in SPSS format.

FC10EHH.SAV - contains the household level confidentialised survey unit record data in SPSS for Windows format.
FC10EFM.SAV - contains the family level confidentialised survey unit record data in SPSS for Windows format.
FC10EPN.SAV - contains the person level confidentialised survey unit record data in SPSS for Windows format.

STATA FILES
These files contain the data for the CURF in STATA format.

FC10EHH.DTA - contains the household level confidentialised survey unit record data in STATA.
FC10EFM.DTA - contains the family level confidentialised survey unit record data in STATA.
FC10EPN.DTA - contains the person level confidentialised survey unit record data in STATA.INFORMATION FILES

Data Item List

The Data item list contains all the data items, including details of categories and code values, that are available on the Basic CURF. It is available on the Downloads tab

Formats File

FORMATS.SAS7BCAT - the SAS format file which provides labels for associated code values in the SAS version of the CURF.

Frequency Files

FREQUENCIES_ FCS_HOUSEHOLD.TXT - contains unweighted frequency counts for all household level data items.
FREQUENCIES_ FCS_FAMILY.TXT - contains unweighted frequency counts for all family level data items.
FREQUENCIES_ FCS_PERSON_FC.TXT - contains unweighted frequency counts for all person level data items.