1351.0.55.057 - Research Paper: Constructing an Experimental Household-Level Socio-Economic Index of Disadvantage Using GSS Data, Aug 2015  
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This paper explored the feasibility of constructing an experimental socio-economic index of disadvantage at the household level using General Social Survey (GSS) data. The interest in finer level indexes arises from the need for detailed disadvantage information to complement broad measures such as area based indexes. The GSS covers a broad range of socio-economic variables which enables the incorporation of many dimensions of disadvantage. The 2010 and 2014 GSS datasets were analysed separately to construct an index of disadvantage for each period. Both simple and complex measures of disadvantage were explored. The simple measures consisted of counts of indicators and domains of disadvantage while the complex method involved using weights derived from principal component analysis to combine the variables to derive a summary or composite measure of disadvantage.