Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

6. USING CENSUS FOR SMALL AREA ANALYSIS

Although the GSS is the best source for data on volunteering, the sample size prevents analysis of voluntary work for small geographic areas below capital city / balance of state (see Table 4.3 for rates). Differences in socio-demographics between communities may also result in differences in voluntary work rates between communities and using the Census can be useful to understand volunteering at small areas. Even though the Census cannot be used to estimate absolute levels of volunteering in different areas, it could be used to identify where there are differences between areas.

Statistical Local Areas (SLAs) within Sydney were chosen for comparison of characteristics. Table 6.1 compares volunteer rates for people in Sydney across selected characteristics.

Characteristics of persons		Volunteer Rate (%)
		2006 GSS(b)				2006 Census		Rate ratio
Sex
	Male	28.6		(24.2–33.0)		14.8		1.9
	Female	31.6		(27.5–35.7)		18.7		1.7
Age group
	18–29 years	24.5		(17.8–31.2)		13.5		1.8
	30–39 years	30.1		(23.9–36.2)		15.0		2.0
	40–59 years	36.4		(32.3–40.4)		19.6		1.9
	60 years and over	26.0		(19.2–32.8)		17.2		1.5
Family composition
	Family with children aged under 15 years	39.6		(34.1–45.0)		19.3		2.1
	Family with dependent children aged 15–24 years	35.5		(22.5–48.5)		19.3		1.8
	Family with no dependent children	24.7		(20.4–29.1)		15.0		1.6
Social marital status (c)
	Married	34.2		(30.3–38.1)		17.9		1.9
	Not Married	23.4		(18.9–27.9)		15.0		1.6
Proficiency in spoken English at home
	Speaks English only	32.6		(28.3–36.9)		19.7		1.7
	Speaks English well or very well	26.6		(21.1–32.1)		11.9		2.2
	Speaks English not well or not at all	16.2		(7.5–25.0)		4.9		3.3
Highest level of educational attainment
	Advanced Diploma/Diploma or above	39.5		(33.5–45.5)		23.9		1.6
	Year 12 or Certificate III/IV	27.1		(22.3–31.8)		14.5		1.9
	Year 11 or below	23.4		(18.0–28.8)		10.8		2.2
Labour force status
	Employed full-time	27.6		(22.7–32.5)		15.2		1.8
	Employed part-time	44.1		(37.0–51.3)		22.0		2.0
	Unemployed	13.9		(4.3–23.5)		17.7		0.8
	Not in the Labour force	29.0		(23.0–34.9)		16.1		1.8
(a) GSS and Census estimates presented in this table are for people aged 18 years and over living in private dwellings, in non-very remote areas, with a stated voluntary work status and no missing values.
(b) Includes the 95% confidence interval in brackets. There is a 95% chance that the true population lies within this range.
(c) For social marital status, married includes registered marriages and defacto relationships where the couples live together, and not married includes all other situations.

Due to the sampling error for GSS estimates for Sydney, rate ratios were not found to be significantly different from each other, therefore differences in volunteering between different demographic groups cannot be identified at this level of geographic area. The exception is for the unemployed, which was significantly lower than those employed or not in the labour force (the rate for GSS and Census for unemployed was not significantly different).

Although differences within groups cannot be identified, the estimates for the rate ratios tend to lie within the bounds described in Section 4 (i.e. the GSS volunteer rate is 1.5 to 2.0 times larger than the Census volunteer rate). This suggests the Census can be used to compare differences in the propensity to volunteer at lower geographic regions.

Differences in rates between SLAs were consistent with differences in the predictors of volunteering that were previously discussed in Section 5. Therefore, differences between SLAs in volunteering rates can be compared with reasonable confidence, even though the absolute level of volunteering will be understated within SLAs.

Table 6.2 presents the volunteering rates for the eight SLAs within Sydney – those with the four lowest and four highest volunteering rates. All SLAs are presented in Appendix E.


Fairfield East has the lowest volunteer rate at 7.9% followed by Bankstown North-East (9.0%). Ku-ring-gai has the highest rate (29.2%), followed by the Blue Mountains (27.1%). This compared to 16.8% for all of Sydney.

Table 6.3 presents the population profiles for selected SLAs to allow for comparison to groups of interest.

The most notable difference for these SLAs can be seen in proficiency in spoken English. The Blue Mountains had the highest percentage of people who spoke English only (95.0%), with Ku-ring-gai (80.8%) being close to the total adult Australian population (82.3%). In contrast, Bankstown North-East (23.0%) and Fairfield East (25.4%) had much lower percentages of people who spoke English only.

Another large difference between SLAs can be seen across highest level of educational attainment. The largest percentage of people who had completed an Advanced Diploma/Diploma or above could be seen in Ku-ring-gai (60.6%), followed by the Blue Mountains (38.3%). These two SLAs were above the average for Australia (28.2%). Conversely, Bankstown North-East and Fairfield East had below average percentages of people who had completed an Advanced Diploma/Diploma qualifications or above (21.3% and 14.7%).

Both proficiency in spoken English and highest level of educational attainment were found to be strong predictors of volunteering in Section 5. Family composition was another strong predictor; however the variations between the selected SLAs for family type were much smaller than those for proficiency in spoken English and highest level of educational attainment.

Bankstown North East and Fairfield East had greater percentages of people in family compositions (such as those with dependent children under 15 years) that are more likely to volunteer compared with the Blue Mountains and Ku-ring-gai.

Differences were also found in other demographic characteristics that predict volunteering, namely age, social marital status and part-time employment status. However, while these differences were smaller than for proficiency in spoken English and highest level of educational attainment, they were in the direction that would be expected. For example, being employed part-time was a positive predictor of volunteering and a greater percentage of people were found to be employed part-time in the selected SLAs with higher volunteer rates compared with the Australian average and the selected SLAs with lower volunteer rates.

Tables 6.4 and 6.5 show that for SLA comparison the Census can be used to compare differences in the propensity to volunteer between SLAs where there are large differences in volunteer rates. These results suggest that the propensity to volunteer involves interactions between a number of the demographic and socio-economic characteristics identified as strong predictors of volunteering.

Characteristics of persons		Bankstown (C) – North–East		Fairfield (C) – East		Blue Mountains (C)		Ku-ring-gai (A)		Australia
		%		%		%		%		%
Sex
	Male	48.6		48.8		48.2		47.7		48.8
	Female	51.4		51.2		51.8		52.3		51.2
Age group
	18–29 years	26.6		22.9		17.0		16.7		21.2
	30–39 years	20.4		20.2		18.0		13.3		20.0
	40–59 years	33.8		35.9		43.2		43.0		37.8
	60 years and over	19.3		21.0		21.8		26.9		20.9
Family composition
	Family with children aged under 15 years	38.5		35.0		31.4		32.2		30.1
	Family with dependent children aged 15–24 years	10.7		10.0		9.4		18.2		8.4
	Family with no dependent children	50.7		55.1		59.2		49.6		61.6
Social marital status (b)
	Married	59.0		55.1		65.4		69.9		63.2
	Not Married	41.0		44.9		34.6		30.1		36.8
Proficiency in spoken English at home
	Speaks English only	23.0		25.4		95.0		80.8		82.3
	Speaks English well or very well	58.6		46.6		4.7		17.1		14.7
	Speaks English not well or not at all	18.4		28.0		0.3		2.1		3.1
Highest level of educational attainment
	Advanced Diploma/Diploma or above	21.3		14.7		38.3		60.6		28.2
	Year 12 or Certificate III/IV	39.4		36.5		35.5		27.1		36.4
	Year 11 or below	39.3		48.8		26.2		12.2		35.4
Labour force status
	Employed full-time	38.0		36.8		45.3		44.2		46.9
	Employed part-time	13.4		11.4		21.8		21.9		18.5
	Unemployed	5.6		6.7		3.1		1.9		3.3
	Not in the Labour force	42.9		45.1		29.8		32.0		31.3
(a) To keep the analyses consistent, Census estimates presented in this table are for people aged 18 years and over living in private dwellings, in non-very remote areas, with a stated voluntary work status and no missing values.
(b) For social marital status, married includes registered marriages and defacto relationships where the couples live together, and not married includes all other situations.

Characteristics of persons		Bankstown (C) – North–East		Fairfield (C) – East		Blue Mountains (C)		Ku-ring-gai (A)		Australia
		%		%		%		%		%
Sex
	Male	43.3		43.4		43.6		42.7		42.8
	Female	56.7		56.5		56.4		57.3		57.2
Age group
	18–29 years	25.9		23.2		12.4		12.7		15.8
	30–39 years	19.9		18.2		16.0		11.1		18.5
	40–59 years	36.4		38.7		48.1		49.6		43.9
	60 years and over	17.8		20.0		23.5		26.6		21.9
Family composition
	Family with children aged under 15 years	38.7		34.7		35.6		38.3		34.8
	Family with dependent children aged 15–24 years	13.9		11.7		9.6		18.4		9.2
	Family with no dependent children	47.4		53.6		54.8		43.3		56.0
Social marital status (b)
	Married	57.5		53.5		69.7		75.9		68.4
	Not Married	42.6		46.5		30.3		24.1		31.6
Proficiency in spoken English at home
	Speaks English only	33.7		37.5		96.0		86.7		89.8
	Speaks English well or very well	58.5		47.2		3.9		12.4		9.5
	Speaks English not well or not at all	7.7		15.4		0.1		0.9		0.8
Highest level of educational attainment
	Advanced Diploma/Diploma or above	37.4		26.6		51.1		70.4		40.7
	Year 12 or Certificate III/IV	38.9		38.9		30.8		21.2		32.4
	Year 11 or below	23.8		34.5		18.1		8.5		26.8
Labour force status
	Employed full-time	39.7		34.9		39.1		38.5		42.5
	Employed part-time	17.6		16.3		26.2		25.2		23.3
	Unemployed	6.9		9.2		3.3		2.0		3.6
	Not in the Labour force	35.9		39.6		31.5		34.3		30.6
(a) To keep the analyses consistent, Census estimates presented in this table are for people aged 18 years and over living in private dwellings, in non-very remote areas, with a stated voluntary work status and no missing values.
(b) For social marital status, married includes registered marriages and defacto relationships where the couples live together, and not married includes all other situations.

Characteristics of persons		Bankstown (C) – North–East		Fairfield (C) – East		Blue Mountains (C)		Ku-ring-gai (A)		Australia
		%		%		%		%		%
Sex
	Male	8.0		7.1		24.6		26.1		17.7
	Female	9.9		8.8		29.5		32.0		22.5
Age group
	18–29 years	8.8		8.1		19.8		22.3		14.9
	30–39 years	8.8		7.2		23.9		24.0		18.5
	40–59 years	9.7		8.5		30.1		33.4		23.2
	60 years and over	8.3		7.6		29.8		29.1		21.4
Family composition
	Family with children aged under 15 years	9.1		7.9		30.7		34.5		23.2
	Family with dependent children aged 15–24 years	11.7		9.2		27.8		29.4		22.1
	Family with no dependent children	8.4		7.7		25.1		25.6		18.3
Social marital status (b)
	Married	8.8		7.7		28.8		31.6		21.7
	Not Married	9.4		8.2		23.9		23.5		17.4
Proficiency in spoken English at home
	Speaks English only	13.3		11.7		27.4		31.3		21.9
	Speaks English well or very well	9.0		8.1		22.5		21.3		13.1
	Speaks English not well or not at all	3.8		4.4		8.9		11.9		5.1
Highest level of educational attainment
	Advanced Diploma/Diploma or above	15.6		14.2		35.9		33.7		28.7
	Year 12 or Certificate III/IV	8.9		8.5		23.6		22.9		17.9
	Year 11 or below	5.5		5.6		18.9		20.3		15.4
Labour force status
	Employed full-time	9.4		7.5		23.3		25.3		18.1
	Employed part-time	11.6		11.2		32.3		33.3		25.1
	Unemployed	10.9		10.7		29.1		29.9		22.1
	Not in the Labour force	7.6		7.0		29.0		31.6		20.0
(a) To keep the analyses consistent, Census estimates presented in this table are for people aged 18 years and over living in private dwellings, in non-very remote areas, with a stated voluntary work status and no missing values.
(b) For social marital status, married includes registered marriages and defacto relationships where the couples live together, and not married includes all other situations.