SCOPE AND COVERAGE OF THE 2016 PES

SCOPE OF THE 2016 PES

1 For Census and PES purposes, scope refers to the group of people about which information is required. A set of rules is applied to determine whether a selected person is within this population of interest.

2 The scope of the Census is every person present in Australia on Census night with the exception of foreign diplomats and their families. Ideally the PES would sample from all people who were, or should have been, counted in the Census. For practical reasons, however, there were a number of areas, dwellings and people outside the scope of the 2016 PES.

3 Of the people present in Australia at the time of the PES, the following are not included in the scope of the PES:

• overseas visitors who were not in Australia on 9 August 2016 (Census night)
• foreign diplomats and their families
• people in non-private dwellings such as hotels, motels, hospitals and other institutions
• homeless people (as the sample selected in the PES is based on a selection of dwellings)
• babies born after 9 August 2016
• people in Other territories (e.g. Christmas Island, Norfolk Island and Jervis Bay Territory) or Australian external territories (e.g. Australian Antarctic Territory, Coral Sea Islands Territory).

4 The PES also does not obtain information about people who died between Census and PES.

Remote Areas and Discrete Communities

5 The 2016 PES sample included remote areas and Discrete Communities, which ensured a more complete geographic coverage of the PES. In 2016, the risk to statistical independence in these areas and communities was effectively managed through careful monitoring of Census field operations, interviewer training and well established field procedures. No PES interviewers worked on Census collection activities in these same areas.

Non-private Dwellings (NPDs)

6 The 2016 PES sample excluded people living in NPDs, as has been the case in previous PES cycles. NPDs are establishments which provide predominantly short-term accommodation for communal or group living, and often provide common eating facilities. They include hotels, motels, hostels, hospitals, religious institutions providing accommodation, educational institutions providing accommodation, prisons, boarding houses and short-stay caravan parks.

7 The inclusion of NPDs was considered for the 2016 PES; however, they were excluded for the following reasons:

• a higher number of NPDs are found to be vacant at any given point in time, compared with private dwellings, due to their short-stay nature
• many of the people who are contacted in these dwellings are not in scope of the PES; e.g. overseas visitors who were not in Australia on 9 August
• many of the people usually live in a private dwelling and could be selected at their usual residence
• the quality of information is often poor, especially in institutions where information cannot be provided by the respondents themselves and is collected from staff or administrative lists
• there is an increased risk to the statistical independence of the PES for institutions, as Census uses the same staff or administrative lists
• the costs of enumerating them is prohibitive compared with private dwellings due to the additional time and effort to enumerate.

COVERAGE OF THE 2016 PES

8 Coverage refers to a set of rules designed to give each in scope person in the PES sample a single chance of selection in the survey. These rules are implemented by associating each person with a single dwelling through a series of questions in the PES interview, such as where each person usually lives and whether they (or anyone else) are staying at their usual residence during the PES enumeration period.

9 An example of the need for coverage rules is for a visitor staying at a dwelling selected in the PES. If the visitor reports that someone else is staying at their usual residence during PES enumeration, or they return to their residence at a later point during the enumeration period, this visitor could have two chances of being included in the PES (i.e. once at their usual residence and again at their current location). In this example, the PES coverage rules would associate the visitor with their place of usual residence and not the dwelling they were visiting, thereby giving them only one chance of being included in the PES enumeration.