Economic Indexes

Guide for use: SEIFA is a suite of four summary measures that have been created from 2006 Census information. The indexes can be used to explore different aspects of socio-economic conditions by geographic areas. For each index, every geographic area in Australia is given a SEIFA number which shows how disadvantaged that area is compared with other areas in Australia. Each index summarises a different aspect of the socio-economic conditions of people living in an area. They each summarise a different set of social and economic information. The indexes provide more general measures of socio-economic status than is given by measuring income or unemployment alone, for example. The four indexes in SEIFA 2006 are: Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage: is derived from Census variables related to disadvantage, such as low income, low educational attainment, unemployment, and dwellings without motor vehicles. Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage: a continuum of advantage (high values) to disadvantage (low values) which is derived from Census variables related to both advantage and disadvantage, like household with low income and people with a tertiary education. Index of Economic Resources: focuses on Census variables like the income, housing expenditure and assets of households. Index of Education and Occupation: includes Census variables relating to the educational and occupational characteristics of communities, like the proportion of people with a higher qualification or those employed in a skilled occupation. The concept of relative socio-economic disadvantage is neither simple, nor well defined. SEIFA uses a broad definition of relative socio-economic disadvantage in terms of people's access to material and social resources, and their ability to participate in society. While SEIFA represents an average of all people living in an area, SEIFA does not represent the individual situation of each person. Larger areas are more likely to have greater diversity of people and households. SEIFA 2006 is released for the following geographic levels: Census Collection District (CD); Postal Area (POA); Statistical Local Area (SLA); and Local Government Area (LGA). The basic geographic level used to create SEIFA is the CD. The CD is the smallest spatial unit in the Australian Standard Geographic Classification (ASGC) (ABS cat no 1216.0). SLAs and LGAs are larger units in the ASGC. POAs are a CD-based approximation of Australia Post postcodes, and are part of the Census Geographic Areas classification (ABS cat no 2905.0).