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Household Five Year Mobility Indicator (MV5D)

This variable indicates if all, some, or none of the residents of a household have changed address in the previous five years. Persons temporarily absent and visitors are excluded.

This variable is applicable to all occupied private dwellings, excluding those that were determined to be 'Visitor only' or 'Other non-classifiable' households.

How this variable is created

This variable is derived from questions asking for a person's place of usual residence on Census night, one year ago and five years ago. From this data it is possible to identify the change of address of people and show the movement of households for five years prior to the Census date. The dwelling can then be coded as having all, some, or no residents in the household having a different address five years ago. Images of the questions used to derive this variable are provided below.

Variable history

A variable on household mobility was first used for the 1991 Census. This question relating to Place of Usual Residence Five Years Ago was first asked in the 1971 Census and has been asked at every Census since then. Geographic classifications have been changed for the 2016 Census so that they match the updated ASGS. The date listed for five years ago has also been updated.

Non-response rate

The majority of item non-response is attributable to households which 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 households return a Census form but may not answer a particular question(s). For more information, refer to Understanding Census data quality.

Item non-response rates are a measure of how many households 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 non-response rate for this variable was 2.9% in 2016 (2.9% in 2011). For this variable, the 'non-response' includes households in which one or more residents did not state their usual residence one year ago.

Further information

For more information see the data quality statements for Usual Address Indicator Census Night, Usual Address One Year Ago Indicator and Usual Address Five Years Ago Indicator.

Household form question image

Questions as they appeared on the 2016 Census Household Form

A text only version of the online Census Household form is available from the Downloads tab.