Year of Arrival in Australia

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Description
Image of Question
Classification
Quality Statement


Description

This variable records the year of arrival in Australia for people born overseas who intend staying in Australia for at least one year. In 1996, data were collected in categories ranging from 'Before 1981' to '1996'. For 2001 and 2006, data were collected by single year with valid responses in 2006 being in the range 1895 to 2006.

When cross-classified with other Census data, these data are useful for analysing how the characteristics of migrants change with length of time in Australia.
More Detailed Description


Image of Question

Classification

Applicable to: Persons born overseas who will be in Australia for more than one year

1890-2006 (1890 to 2006 singly)
&&&& Not stated
@@@@ Not applicable
VVVV Overseas visitor

Total number of categories:
by single year of arrival 115
by standard recode 11

More Detailed Description

Quality Statement - Year of Arrival in Australia (YARP)

There are many aspects which can affect the quality of Census data. The following information should be considered when viewing data on Year of Arrival in Australia (YARP).

This data is captured automatically from written numeric responses and there is some risk of character recognition error. The data is subject to sample checks to ensure an acceptable level of quality and all outlying values are checked to ensure they match the response on the form.

The non-response rate for 2006 was 4.8%, the same rate as for 2001. Unlike most other variables the non-response rate is not affected by the occurrence of non-responding dwellings as Year of Arrival in Australia (YARP) is only applicable for persons who have stated that they were born in a country other than Australia, in the preceding question.

Figure 1: Year of Arrival in Australia Question and Preceding Question


Additional sources of Year of Arrival in Australia information are available from ABS publications and associated collections, including:

• Australian Social Trends (various years) (cat. no. 4102.0), which contain a number of articles relating to year of arrival.
• Perspectives on Migrants, 2007 (cat. no. 3416.0), which contains year of arrival data in a series of articles about a range of migrant and ethnicity related issues.

Most ABS population surveys collect information on year of arrival for the overseas-born population. Regular statistics on overseas arrivals and departures classified by country of birth, are available from passenger cards required to be completed by each person leaving or entering Australia.

The ABS aims to produce high quality data from the Census. To achieve this, extensive effort is put into Census form design, collection procedures, and processing procedures. More details regarding these efforts can be found in:

• the Census Data Quality Declaration (re data relevance, timeliness, accuracy, coherence, interpretability, and accessibility);
• the Census Characteristics documents (data quality statements for each census characteristic); and
• the 2006 Census Dictionary (cat. no. 2901.0) in the section titled 'Managing Census Quality'.
  

All are available from the ABS Website.

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