2902.0 - Census Update (Newsletter), Mar 2007  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 13/03/2007   
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No Child Left Excluded

by Rob Tanton


The National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra (NATSEM) is a major user of Census data for research and analysis.

NATSEM found the availability of Census data was crucial to a recent research project, which contributes to a better understanding of disadvantage in Australia at a small area level. For this project the Census is the only data source that can provide reliable estimates of a number of socio-economic variables at a small area level for the whole of Australia.

The project identifies regions where children may be at risk of social exclusion. In this project children at high risk of social exclusion are those identified as living in families with multiple sources of disadvantage, such as low parental income; low levels of family education and low levels of family labour force participation. The index is calculated using the same method as the ABS SEIFA indexes, with the same data source - the 2001 Census. There are three indexes calculated: one for children aged 0–4 years, one for children aged 5–15 years and one for children aged 0–15 years. NATSEM has calculated each index for most SLAs in Australia. This research is funded through an ARC Discovery Grant. ABS was able to assist NATSEM by providing a number of tailored Census output tables which addressed their particular data requirements.

The Child Social Exclusion (CSE) Indices shed new light on the spatial distribution of disadvantage in Australia, as in many disadvantaged families, the number of children outnumber the number of adults. This is particularly true in single parent families.

More information about this and other research work conducted by NATSEM using Census data is available at www.canberra.edu.au or by contacting Rob Tanton on 02 6201 2769.