Demography

Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset (ACLD)
The Multi-Agency Data Integration Project (MADIP)
(see: Data assets)

Commencement date: November 2021
Project status: Approved, not started

The Post Census Review (PCR), formerly called the Post Enumeration Survey, is run immediately following the Census of Population and Housing, and has been conducted for every Census since 1966.

The PCR measures the overcount and undercount of the Census. This is achieved by linking PCR records to Census records to determine which persons in Census were counted once, which were counted more than once (overcount), and which were not counted at all (undercount).

PCR requires a very high standard of linkage to produce accurate estimates, requiring personal identifiers (name, date of birth, address) from both PCR and Census. This is done within tight security provisions consistent with Census protocols. Personal identifiers are erased from all PCR environments per the time frames in the Census Privacy Statement. Only aggregate estimates are published from the PCR.

The Post Census Review provides a critical component to 2021 Census rebasing of the Australian Estimated Resident Population (ERP).

It also provides users with an assessment of the completeness of Census counts, allowing them to take this into account when using Census information; and independently evaluates the effectiveness of Census enumeration procedures so that improvements can be made for future Censuses.

Commencement date: October 2020
Project status: In progress

A critical path to ensuring the success of the five yearly Australian Census is through large scale testing. The 2020 Census Operation Readiness Exercise (ORE), previously called the Census Dress Rehearsal, and its subsequent review, will provide the necessary data to support testing of Census linking procedures and systems, ahead of the main event in August 2021.

Field tests are an important part of development for ABS collections. They provide feedback on systems, processes and respondent behavior that enables improvement of the collection and smoother participation for respondents.

Commencement date: September 2020
Project status: In progress

This project will support the research required to develop and implement low-response contingencies to improve data that ABS provides to the community through the Census of Population and Housing.

Low response contingencies will help us maintain high-quality Census data, even if an unexpected event occurs that impacts on the Census response. This research will involve several different approaches: 

• Improving and repairing the Census with administrative data
• Improving the linkage rate between Census and administrative data (MADIP)
• Exploring how a 5% sample of 2011 Census data linked to 2016 Census data can be used to improve Census data quality.

The integrated data from this project will be for internal ABS Census Program use in researching new methodologies in the lead up to the 2021 Census. To promote transparency of the work that is being conducted, some public-facing outputs will be produced, for example research articles and high-level communications. No data will be published.

The Census of Population and Housing (Census) is one of the ABS’ most critical, legislated functions. High quality Census data is critical to informing the planning and delivery of Government and community services, business decisions and academic research.

This research will support improvements to 2021 Census data, including in the event of an unacceptably low response

Commencement date: August 2020
Project status: In progress

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) have established a project to enhance the suite of national crime and justice data collections to enable person-level data linkage, and to undertake data linkage with key justice, health and welfare services datasets.

The initial phases of this project have linked together administrative datasets from Police, Criminal Courts, Corrective Services and Juvenile Justice criminal justice agencies across several Australian jurisdictions, in order to assess data linkage methodologies and test the development of an NCCJS Justice Spine which can potentially be linked to other datasets.

This project will support the analysis of employment and financial outcomes of people who have come into contact with the criminal justice sector, addressing a key data gap highlighted by the Prison to Work report. It also tests the viability of using existing linkage methodologies to link crime and justice data with other administrative datasets.

Commencement date: August 2019
Project status: In progress

This project, led by the Department of Social Services, aims to build a broader picture of income support recipients’ pathways once they leave the system, and, if possible, the interventions that occurred in the lead-up to this outcome.

This project will be used to better understand outcomes of recipients once they leave income support to assist with designing effective income support policies and employment programs. Linking administrative income support data to recent employment history, health and education data will provide insight into who needs more support in finding work.

Commencement date: October 2019
Project status: In progress

This project, led by the Department of Social Services, aims to broaden the picture of the impact of intergenerational welfare dependence by investigating the relationship between a child’s social, health, education and employment outcomes and their parent’s use of income support.

This project will provide policy makers across government agencies with detailed insights into the characteristics and protective factors associated with pathways out of childhood disadvantage, as well as the effect of geographical location on these pathways.

It may also identify possible points of intervention, to guide the development of policy and support programs aimed at breaking the cycle of disadvantage, allowing the government to develop targeted interventions with the potential to reduce lifetime welfare spending.

Commencement date: 30/08/2019
Project status: Completed

This project will support the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services to identify intergenerational drivers of entry into the Victorian Child Protection system. It will provide new insights from Commonwealth data and will act as a proof of concept for linking Victorian Government data with Commonwealth data.

The analysis will seek to answer the question: What factors influence children and young people entering the Child Protection system including out-of-home care before the age of 5.

The research will identify socio-economic and demographic protective and risk factors that influence a child’s likelihood of interaction with the Child Protection system.

This information will be used to design services to promote the safety, stability and development of vulnerable children, young people and their families.

Commencement date: 26/10/2018
Project status: In progress

This project will combine social housing address lists with the ABS Address Register to create new social housing metadata that will enhance ABS collections, such as the Survey of Income and Housing and the Census of Population and Housing. These quality improvements for accuracy, coverage, and coherence of ABS statistical indicators (such as those used in the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement) will assist policy makers at Commonwealth and state level.

Better measures of the performance of social housing policy will allow policy makers to develop more targeted and effective policies and services. This will contribute to the objective of all Australians having access to affordable, safe, and sustainable housing that contributes to social and economic participation.

Commencement date: 04/07/2017
Project status: Completed

Almost all deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are registered, but some are not identified and recorded as such when registered. Therefore, registration data underestimates the actual number of deaths and death rates and consequently their application can result in overestimates of life expectancy of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Hence the number of registered deaths needs to be adjusted before compiling life tables.

This project linked the 2016 Census data with all deaths that were registered within one year following the Census to estimate factors for adjusting registered deaths. Adjusted deaths were used to compile life tables.

Benefits of the project include:

• A more accurate measure of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander life expectancy - a critical measure under the Closing the Gap agenda.
• Life expectancy has been produced for three categories of remoteness compared to two in the previous release: Major Cities, combined Inner & Outer Regional, and combined Remote & Very Remote (keenly sought after).
• Life expectancy by Index of Relative Socio-Economic Disadvantage was also produced for the first time.

10/12/2018 - Linking Death registrations to the 2016 Census, 2016-17 (cat.no. 3302.0.55.004)
This information paper describes the background and rationale for the 2016 Census to Death Registrations linkage project.

29/11/2018 - Life Tables for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, 2015-2017 (cat. no. 3302.0.55.003)
This publication presents life tables for male and female Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians for the reference period 2015-2017, for Australia, selected states and territories, Remoteness Areas and Index of Relative Socio-Economic Disadvantage.
 

Commencement date: 12/10/2016 (PES 2016)
Project status: Ongoing

The Census Post Enumeration Survey (PES) has taken place shortly after each Census since 1966, in order to provide an independent measure of Census coverage. It determines how many people should have been counted in the Census, how many were missed, how many were counted more than once, and how many were counted in error.

The PES:

• Provides estimates of net undercount that are used to calculate population estimates for Australia and its states and territories
• Provides users with an assessment of the completeness of Census data, allowing them to take this into account when using Census information; and
• Independently evaluates the effectiveness of how a Census is run, so improvements can be made in future Censuses

Accurate estimates of the resident population are required for a wide range of uses including:

• The allocation of seats to States and Territories in the House of Representatives of the Australian Parliament
• The distribution of Commonwealth payments to States and Territories
• Planning and performance reporting
• Demographic, social and economic research

23/02/2018 - Census of Population and Housing: Details of Overcount and Undercount, Australia, 2016 (cat. no. 2940.0)
This publication presents estimates of undercount and overcount for the 2016 Census, resulting from the 2016 Census Post Enumeration Survey.

21/06/2012 - Census of Population and Housing - Details of Undercount, 2011 (cat. no. 2940.0)
This publication presents estimates of net undercount for the 2011 Census of Population and Housing, resulting from the Census Post Enumeration Survey (PES).

PES results from earlier Censuses can be found on the Past & Future releases tab of the publications above.

Commencement date: 01/06/2015
Project status: Completed

This project tested the feasibility of combining 2011 Census of Population and Housing and Personal Income Tax data, looking at the linkage rates and linkage accuracy to inform future projects.

This project demonstrated the feasibility of linking nationally important datasets.

Commencement date: 09/01/2015
Project status: Completed

This three year data integration project by the ABS and the Department of Social Services demonstrated that combining Social Security data with ABS datasets can provide national statistical assets for policy related research and evaluation. It was a pre-cursor to the Multi-Agency Data Integration Project (MADIP), and helped inform various technical aspects of that project.

This project produced additional information such as education and qualifications, work (including hours worked, occupation and industry), ethnicity, income, and housing with information about people who interact with the social security system. The statistics are experimental, given various limitations related to the linking and weighting of records. For more information, refer to Limitations section in “Microdata: Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset with Social Security and Related Information, experimental statistics, 2006-2011 (cat. no. 2085.0)”.

This project helped to build the evidence base available to inform the development of policies to improve the well-being of Australians.

21/09/2021 - Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET); more than a youth policy issue
This paper builds on the authors' February 2021 working paper to investigate extending standard reporting of NEET to include all working age persons 15-64 years of age. A new three-category classification is proposed for the working age NEET population. The authors highlight the importance of collaborative data integration projects for social policy design and development.

01/02/2021 - Not in Employment, or Training (NEET): More than a Youth Policy Issue
This working paper uses analysis from this project to suggest that standard reporting misses out on information concerning 80 per cent of the working age NEET population in Australia. Combined with other demographic insights, these results have implications for welfare policy, and indicate a wider range of demographics should be considered under the NEET classification. This may also have implications for international reporting.

23/08/2017 - Microdata: Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset with Social Security and Related Information, experimental statistics, 2006-2011 (cat. no. 2085.0)
This experimental statistical release brings together data from the Department of Social Services' Social Security and Related Information with the 2006-11 ACLD. This publication provides information about the microdata available in TableBuilder and DataLab, and selected analytical insights including two infographics.