General Social Survey: Summary Results, Australia methodology

Latest release
Reference period
2020

Overview

Scope

Includes all usual residents in Australia aged 15 and over.

Geographical coverage

Data was collected from approximately 5,300 households around Australia. Data was not collected from people who live in very remote parts of Australia.

Source

Data was collected in the 2020 General Social Survey over a 4 month period from 15th June to 5th September 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Collection method

Households were able to complete the survey online or via a telephone interview. There was no face-to-face interviewing conducted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

History of changes

The survey was previously run in 2019.  Prior to that, the survey was conducted once every four years from 2002 to 2014

About this survey

The General Social Survey (GSS) provides data on the social characteristics, wellbeing and social experiences of people in Australia. 

Its key benefit is that it provides information on the multi-dimensional nature of relative advantage and disadvantage across the population. 

This survey is used by government, academics, and community organisations to help inform social policy and research for areas of social concern. The focus is on the relationships between characteristics, rather than in-depth information about a particular field. It provides data on numerous topics known to influence social outcomes, complementing specialised surveys that collect data on topics in greater depth.

GSS explores people's opportunities to participate fully in society, and asks Australians how they feel about aspects of their lives. Key topics include:

  • Life satisfaction
  • Personal stressors
  • Involvement in social, community support, and civic and political groups
  • Family and community support
  • Cultural tolerance and discrimination
  • Trust
  • Financial stress
  • Voluntary work.

GSS provides data on a range of important populations of interest, including:

  • people with a mental health condition
  • people with a long term health condition
  • people with disability
  • recent migrants and temporary residents, and other migrants
  • people with different sexual orientations.

This survey is one of the main ABS data sources to measure volunteering and related topics.

GSS can also be used to examine change over time for selected data items.

How the data is collected

Scope

The scope of the survey includes:

  • all usual residents in Australia aged 15 years and over living in private dwellings
  • both urban and rural areas in all states and territories, except for very remote parts of Australia and discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

 The survey excluded the following people:

  • visitors to private dwellings
  • overseas visitors who have not been working or studying in Australia for 12 months or more, or do not intend to do so
  • members of non-Australian defence forces stationed in Australia and their dependants
  • non-Australian diplomats, diplomatic staff and members of their households 
  • people who usually live in non-private dwellings, such as hotels, motels, hostels, hospitals, nursing homes and short-stay caravan park (people in long-stay caravan parks, manufactured home estates and marinas are in scope)
  • people in Very Remote areas
  • discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

The exclusion of persons living in Very Remote areas and discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities is unlikely to impact on national estimates, and will only have a minor impact on any aggregate estimates that are produced for individual states and territories, except the Northern Territory where the excluded population accounts for around 21% of persons.

Sample design

One person aged 15 years or over was randomly selected in each household to complete the GSS questionnaire. If the randomly selected person was aged 15 - 17 years old, parental consent was sought for the interview to proceed.

The sample was designed to target low socio-economic areas. In order to meet the survey aim of exploring the relative outcomes of people more vulnerable to socio-economic disadvantage, people in these areas had a higher probability of being selected in the sample. Households were randomly selected from each selected area to participate in the survey.

Response rates

There were 5,304 fully responding households in the survey, a response rate of 60.5%. Of these, 3,764 were self completed by the household online and 1,540 were completed via the telephone with an ABS interviewer.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no face-to-face follow up for non-responding households in the GSS 2020. This resulted in a higher than usual proportion of non-response (37.9%). 

  Number%
Fully responding
 Total5,30460.5
Non response
 Refusal790.9
 Non Response3,32737.9
 Part Response580.7
 Total3,46439.5
Total8,768100

Some survey respondents were unable or unwilling to provide a response to certain data items. The records for these people were retained in the sample and the missing values were recorded as 'Not stated' or 'Don't know'. No imputation was undertaken for these missing values.
 

Collection method

The GSS was collected over a 4 month period from 15th June to 5th September 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Households had the option of either completing the survey online, or via a telephone interview.

All households selected in the sample initially received a letter in the post with instructions for completing the survey online. Two reminder letters were sent to households.  Households that were unable to complete the survey on-line were able to complete the survey with an interviewer over the telephone. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no face-to-face follow up for households that did not complete the survey.

As there was no face-to-face follow-up in the GSS 2020, there was a higher than usual proportion of non-response (37.9%). Surveys with a high non-response may display non-response bias if the respondents who chose to participate in the survey do not adequately represent the entire population. This can result in biased estimates for some data items. Care must be exercised when making comparisons between this and previous surveys due to the higher non-response observed in 2020.

The GSS survey has two parts:

  • Household Form, which can be completed by any responsible adult in the household who is aged 18 years or over. The Household Form collects basic demographic information about all usual residents of the household, including those aged under 15 years.
  • Individual Questionnaire, which is completed by one randomly selected person in the household aged 15 years or over. The random selection is automatically performed by the survey instrument upon completion of the Household Form.
     

Questionnaire

How the data is processed

Estimation methods

As only a sample of people in Australia were surveyed, their results needed to be converted into estimates for the whole population. This was done with a process called weighting. 

  • Each person or household was given a number (known as a weight) to reflect how many people or households they represented in the whole population.
  • A person or household’s initial weight was based on their probability of being selected in the sample. For example, if the probability of being selected in the survey was one in 45, then the person would have an initial weight of 45 (that is, they would represent 45 people).

The person and household level weights are then calibrated to align with independent estimates of the in scope population, referred to as ‘benchmarks’. The benchmarks used additional information about the population to ensure that:

  • people or households in the sample represented people or households that were similar to them
  • the survey estimates reflected the distribution of the whole population, not the sample.

The initial weights were calibrated to independent estimates on the number of people who rent their dwelling. These weights were then calibrated to the estimated resident population (ERP) at June 2020. The Australian population at June 2020 aged 15 years and over was 20,269,036 (after exclusion of people living in non-private dwellings, very remote areas of Australia and discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities).

The majority of estimates shown in this publication are based on benchmarked person weights. The estimates in Tables 16 and 17, however, are based on benchmarked household weights.

How the data is released

Release strategy

GSS 2020 presents national estimates, along with selected indicators by state and territory (Table 6) and remoteness area (Table 7).

The sample design of approximately 5,300 fully responding households is not sufficient to enable detailed analysis of state and territory estimates in 2020.

Datacubes/spreadsheets

Most of the data cubes (spreadsheets) in this release contain national level estimates. There is one table containing state and territory estimates and one table containing remoteness area estimates. The data cubes present tables of estimates and proportions, and their associated measures of error. A data item list is also available.

Custom tables

Customised statistical tables to meet individual requirements can be produced on request. These are subject to confidentiality and sampling variability constraints which may limit what can be provided. Enquiries on the information available and the cost of these services should be made to the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070. 

Common uses for this data

This survey is used by government, academics, and community organisations to help inform social policy research for areas of social concern. The focus is on the relationships between characteristics, rather than in-depth information about a particular field. It provides data on numerous topics known to influence social outcomes, complementing specialised surveys that collect data on topics in greater depth.

GSS can also be used to examine change over time for selected data items.

Confidentiality

The Census and Statistics Act 1905 authorises the ABS to collect statistical information, and requires that information is not published in a way that could identify a particular person or organisation. The ABS must make sure that information about individual respondents cannot be derived from published data.

To minimise the risk of identifying individuals in aggregate statistics, a technique called perturbation is used to randomly adjust cell values. Perturbation involves small random adjustment of the statistics which have a negligible impact on the underlying pattern. This is considered the most satisfactory technique for avoiding the release of identifiable data while maximising the range of information that can be released. After perturbation, a given published cell value will be consistent across all tables. However, adding up cell values in Data Cubes to derive a total may give a slightly different result to the published totals. The introduction of perturbation in publications ensures that these statistics are consistent with statistics released via services such as TableBuilder.

History of changes

Previously, the GSS was conducted in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2019.  The following changes were introduced after the 2014 survey:

  • Introduction of a computer assisted web interview (or online form). Of the 5,304 fully responding households who completed the survey in 2020, 3,764 were self completed by the household online. The remaining 1,540 were completed over the phone with an ABS interviewer.  There was no face-to-face interviewing in 2020.
  • Reduced questionnaire. The 2014 survey collected detailed information on voluntary work, whereas a shortened voluntary work module was collected in 2019 and 2020. Other topics that were not collected after 2014 include housing mobility, journey to work, feelings of safety, social disorder, sports participation, attendance at cultural venues, personal use of computers and internet and the detailed access to services module (a shortened access to services module was collected in 2019 and 2020). 

Caveat on using and interpreting GSS Voluntary work data

GSS 2019 and 2020 output estimates for Informal volunteering, in addition to continuing the time series of Unpaid voluntary work through an organisation. While these data items together present a more complete picture of voluntary work undertaken in Australia, care should be taken when using and interpreting these figures, for the reasons shown below.

Different reference periods

Informal volunteering and Unpaid voluntary work through an organisation had different reference periods. Informal volunteering was reported for the four weeks preceding the survey, while Unpaid voluntary work through an organisation was reported for the 12 months preceding the survey. GSS 2020 was collected over a 4 month period from 15 June to 5 September 2020. GSS 2019 was collected over a 3 month period from 29 April to 20 July 2019. It is beyond the scope of this publication to investigate possible seasonal effects on Informal volunteering. It is therefore unknown if combining this figure with the annual figure for Unpaid voluntary work through an organisation would result in an accurate overall Voluntary work figure.

People who undertook both types of Voluntary work

The user is advised that combining total estimates or proportions of: (a) people who undertook Unpaid voluntary work through an organisation and (b) people who undertook Informal volunteering, would result in an overestimate of volunteers. This is because some people undertook both types of voluntary work. 

A breakdown of the number of people who did both types of voluntary work is not available in the GSS 2020 publication.

Caveat on using and interpreting Severity of Disability

There is a conceptual difference in the way the Severity of Disability item was derived after 2014. In 2014, the long term health condition module was used in conjunction with the disability module to derive the item 'No disability or no long term health condition'. In 2019 and 2020, only the disability module was used to derive the item 'No disability'. Conceptually, this means that this particular category for Severity of Disability should not be compared between the 2014 and later iterations.

Questionnaire changes from 2014 to 2019

There were no major questionnaire changes from 2019 to 2020.

However, there were a number of questionnaire changes from 2014 to 2019 that should be considered when analysing the data in Tables 16 and 17. The following table summarises these changes.

Questionnaire changes from 2014 to 2019

Accuracy

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Glossary

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Abbreviations

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