Introduction
1. This reissue supersedes the preliminary release.
2. Users of the data contained in this reissue are advised to carefully read the accompanying Information Paper and Technical Paper:
Information paper: An Introduction to Socio-Economic Indexes For Areas (SEIFA), 2006 (cat. no. 2039.0)
Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) - Technical Paper, 2006 (cat. no. 2039.0.55.001)
3. There are five data cubes that accompany this publication. Four out of the five data cubes contain the SEIFA indexes at Census Collection District (CD), Statistical Local Area (SLA), Local Government Area (LGA) and Postal Area (POA) levels. The fifth data cube is designed to allow distributional analysis of each of the four SEIFA indexes at larger geographic areas. SEIFA scores were not derived for larger geographic areas, as we recommend that users analysing these areas should consider how the distribution of CD scores varies between areas.
4. The data cube "SEIFA population distributions for larger areas" is an interactive visual tool to allow distributional analysis of each of the four SEIFA indexes at Statistical Sub-Division (SSD), Statistical Division (SD), and state levels. The data cube contains graphs showing the distribution of index scores for a specified geographic area and the distribution of index scores for all of Australia for comparison. Each bar represents the number of usual residents in CDs with scores within each range of 25 index points (starting from 500 to 1300) as a percentage of the area level population.
5. There are additional explanatory notes which contain more information specific to each data cube. These are found as a worksheet in the data cube of interest.
Definitions
1. Scores: a lower score indicates that an area is relatively disadvantaged compared to an area with a higher score. Scores should only be used in distributive analysis. To enable easy recognition of high and low scores, the CD index scores have been standardised to have a mean of 1,000 and a standard deviation of 100 across all CDs in Australia. Note that the CD standardisation did not take into account the population of each CD.
2. Ranks: all areas are ordered from the lowest to highest score, then the area with the lowest score is given a rank of 1, the area with the second lowest score is given a rank of 2 and so on, up to the area with the highest score is given the highest rank (the highest rank is 37,457 for CDs).
3. Deciles: all areas are ordered from lowest to highest score, the lowest 10% of areas are given a decile number of 1 and so on, up to the highest 10% of areas which are given a decile number of 10. This means that areas are divided up into ten groups, depending on their score.
4. Percentiles: all areas are ordered from lowest to highest score, the lowest 1% of areas are given a percentile number of 1 and so on, up to the highest 1% of areas which are given a percentile number of 100. This means that areas are divided up into one hundred groups, depending on their score.
5. Ranking within State or Territory (rank, decile, percentile): all areas within each State or Territory are ordered from lowest to highest score, then ranks, deciles and percentiles are assigned to each area within that State or Territory. These State/Territory ranks, deciles and percentiles can only be used to compare areas within a single State or Territory.
6. Usual resident population: population counts in these spreadsheets are based on place of usual residence, as reported on Census Night.
7. CDs, SLAs & LGAs are part of the Australian Standard Geographic Classification. For more information see Statistical Geography Volume 1 - Australian Standard Geographical Classification (ASGC), Jul 2006 (cat. no. 1216.0)
8. POAs are part of the Census Geographic Areas classification. For more information see Statistical Geography: Volume 2 - Census Geographic Areas, Australia, 2006 (cat. no. 2905.0)
Explanatory notes
1. Around 3% of CDs could not be given a score, due to low populations or high levels of non-response in Census. SLAs, LGAs and POAs containing only excluded CDs were also not given a score. Areas with a high proportion of people in excluded CDs may have a SEIFA score that is not representative of its entire population. Refer to the 2006 Information Paper for details on why CDs may not have a SEIFA score.
2. Indexes at Statistical Local Area (SLA), Local Government Area (LGA) and Postal Area (POA) level were constructed using population weighted averages of the constituent CDs (that were given a score). These index scores were not standardised again (standardising was only done at the CD level). Therefore the index scores at POA/SLA/LGA levels may not have a mean of 1,000 and a standard deviation of 100 across all POAs/SLAs/LGAs in Australia. Refer to the 2006 Information Paper for details.
3. Due to rounding of the final index scores multiple areas may have the same index score but different ranking and/or decile number and/or percentile number.
4. These spreadsheets have been optimised for use in Microsoft Excel and may lose some functionality in other spreadsheet packages
5. SEIFA scores indicate the collective socio-economic status of an area's residents. The socio-economic conditions of individual residents in any one area will vary. SEIFA should not be used to indicate the socio-economic status of individuals or households. For more information, refer to the 2006 Information Paper.
6. SEIFA is designed to compare the socio-economic status of areas at a given point in time, not to compare areas across time. For reasons why we do not recommend using SEIFA to compare changes in socio-economic status over time, refer to the 2006 Information Paper.
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