4442.0.55.001 - Family Characteristics Survey, Australia, Expanded Confidentialised Unit Record File, 2003  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 23/12/2005  First Issue
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  • About this Release

An Expanded Confidentialised Unit Record File (CURF) from the 2003 Family Characteristics Survey.

The survey collects statistics on the composition of families and households, especially characteristics of children such as age, sex and step relationships. Some of the issues covered in this publication include marital status; labour force status; parental income; and visiting arrangements for children with parents living elsewhere.

Users are able to tabulate, manipulate and analyse data to their individual specifications.

Steps to confidentialise the dataset are taken to ensure integrity of data, optimise its content and maintain confidentiality of respondents. They include removing any information that might uniquely identify an individual, reducing the level of detail for some items and collapsing some categories.

The CURF includes metadata files and documentation to enable users to read the data into SAS or SPSS software. Users can then analyse the data using any method supported by SAS or SPSS, including cross tabulation and correlative analyses.

The Expanded CURF is only available through the Remote Access Data Laboratory (RADL) and contains more variables and more detailed data for selected variables than the Basic CURF. An information paper explaining data content, technical details and conditions of use is available on the ABS web site and via the 'Information by' link on the RADL home page.

For more information, see Access to ABS CURFs at www.abs.gov.au.