 What's new
Work in progress
International developments
What's new
A new product from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Gender Indicators, Australia (cat. no. 4125.0), was released in August 2011.
Gender Indicators, Australia, a new six-monthly product, presents an initial national set of gender indicators to support analysis and monitor the outcomes of women and men in Australia. By drawing on a wide range of ABS statistics and statistics from other official sources, Gender Indicators, Australia will aid in exploring the differences between males and females, and how their economic and social conditions are changing over time. This information will assist and inform government policy and decision makers in the development, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programs aimed at achieving gender equality.
The Office for Women (OfW), under the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), and the Commonwealth, State, Territory and New Zealand Ministers' Conference on the Status of Women contributed to the funding to produce this first release of Gender Indicators, Australia.
The indicators are organised into six domains representing major areas of social concern for gender equality - Economic security, Education, Health, Work and family balance, Safety and justice, and Democracy, governance and citizenship. The publication presents data for 49 key indicators and 42 related supporting indicators across all the six major areas of social concern. Some indicators are also accompanied with written commentary of key points and graphical representation.
Work in progress
Gender Indicators, Australia (cat. no. 4125.0) will be updated six-monthly. Each release will include updated data and commentary for the indicators wherever available. Future releases will also include an expansion of commentary, further disaggregation of the data by populations of interest or geography and, as required, new indicators.
The next release, due in January 2012, will include updates to data and commentary for any data released since July 2011. It will also include new commentary for other indicators not presented in the July 2011 issue. The January 2012 issue will also be a single reference guide to all of the key gender indicators.
A group of experts in gender policy, research and analysis has been established to advise the ABS on issues relating to the project, and on developments more generally in this field of statistics. This group is known as the Gender Statistics Advisory Group. The first meeting was held in November 2010, and the forum is expected to meet again in late 2011.
International developments
The ABS is a member of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe international task force on indicators of gender equality. The main objectives of the task force are to:
- select indicators for measuring a country's progress on gender equality,
- improve the monitoring of gender equality in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) region by consolidating and systematising the existing proliferation of gender-relevant statistical indicators, and
- propose ways for sustainable data collection on selected indicators.
The work of this task force is expected to be completed in October 2012.
|
