2900.0 - Census of Population and Housing: Understanding the Census and Census Data, Australia , 2016  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 08/11/2017  First Issue
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Australian Citizenship (CITP)

This variable records whether a person has Australian Citizenship and is applicable to all persons.

How this variable is created

The responses to this question are captured automatically from mark box responses on the form so the risk of processing error is minimal. Respondents were asked to mark only one response. In 0.1% of pre-processed data, respondents provided more than one response. In these cases, responses were accepted in the order they appeared on the form and the extra responses were rejected. An image of this question is provided below.

Variable history

A question on national citizenship has been asked on every census since 1911. However, prior to 1986 the specific question wording may have asked to specify country of citizenship or their 'nationality' rather than ask if they were an Australian citizen. No changes were made for 2016.

Non-response rate

Item non-response rates are a measure of how many people did not respond to a particular question as a proportion of the total number of people the question was applicable to. In this instance the response is left as not stated.

The majority of item non-response is attributable to the people who did not respond to the Census at all. Refer to item non-response rates for more information. The second and smaller contributor to item non-response is when people return a Census form but may not answer a particular question(s). For more information, refer to Understanding Census data quality.

The non-response rate for this variable was 6.9% (6.0% in 2011).

Data usage notes

Data includes persons who stated a response to the citizenship question as Australian, but not a country of birth and vice versa. Of all the persons who did not state a citizenship, 14.9% reported their birthplace as Australia. Similarly, of all the persons who did not state a country of birth, 19.8% reported their citizenship as Australian. A possible explanation for this could be that respondents may have assumed their answer of citizenship or birthplace applicable across both questions.

Further information

A definition of Australian Citizenship is available in the 2016 Census Dictionary.

Household form question image

Question 11 as it appeared on the 2016 Census Household Paper Form:

Image: 2016 Household Paper Form - Question 11. Is the person an Australian citizen?
A text only version of the online Census Household form is available from the Downloads tab.