A NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR
Welcome to the April 2014 edition of the Migrant Statistics News brought to you from the National Migrant Statistics Unit (NMSU).
As anticipated, 2014 has taken off with an exciting start for the NMSU.
After many months of hard work, the Microdata: Australian Census and Migrants Integrated Dataset (ACMID), 2011 (cat. no. 3417.0.55.001) was released in TableBuilder on 14 February 2014. This product enables a user to create their own customised tables from the linked dataset from the 2011 Migrants Census Data Enhancement (CDE) Project via a user friendly and flexible output medium. This product makes microdata available for the first time from an integrated dataset that uses administrative data. It was created following the linking of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection's (DIBP) Settlement Data Base (SDB) with the 2011 Australian Census of Population and Housing. This dataset enables users to investigate the settlement outcomes of recent permanent migrants (via the Census) by their entry conditions, such as visa stream, whether they applied onshore or offshore, or whether they were a main or secondary applicant (from the SDB).
The release of microdata was preceded by the CDE statistical publication, Understanding Migrant Outcomes - Enhancing the Value of Census Data, Australia, 2011 (cat. no. 3417.0) in which national level data on migrants was released on the 19 September 2013. Additionally, a research paper presenting findings from the quality study was released on 19 August 2013. This paper assessed the linking methodology, data quality and the integrated data's fitness for purpose (see Research Paper: Assessing the Quality of Linking Migrant Settlement Records to 2011 Census Data, Aug 2013 (cat. no. 1351.0.55.043)). State and territory level data based upon the tables released in the statistical publication above (3417.0) will be released this month on the 30 April. For further information about this project and related publications see the relevant sections in this newsletter. I encourage you to take a look.
Other recent releases from the 2011 Census include Microdata: Australian Census Longitudinal Dataset, 2006-2011 (cat. no. 2080.0) which was released in TableBuilder on the 18 December 2013.
Many readers will have already used the Census QuickStats product, QuickStats Country of Birth, which provides summary information about migrants from a selected range of countries (compared with all overseas born residents and the Australian born population) in a range of geographic areas. However, users were keen for us to release more information such as this at finer levels of geography. In response to this we were pleased to release Census information about the characteristics of overseas born residents at both the Local Government Area (LGA) and Commonwealth Electoral Division (CED) levels. To ensure confidentiality was maintained a minimum of 400 people from any selected country of birth needed to be resident within the selected LGA or CED on Census night. The data is presented as a Country of Birth Community Profile and includes data for selected LGAs and CEDs for each State and territory (cat. no. 2010.1 - 2010.8). The profiles were released on 17 December 2013. See the publications section of the newsletter for a direct link.
The NMSU has also produced an updated migrant Census data cube in the Migrant Data Matrices (cat. no. 3415.0), providing access to a wide range of Census data on migrants and ethnicity. The 2011 Census of Population and Housing, Australia data cube contains 19 tables, including: cultural and language diversity; person characteristics; usual address on Census night, one year ago, five years ago; employment; income; education; and qualification data items. Migrant Data Matrices provides users with links to ABS summary data on migrants.
The 2013 Characteristics of Recent Migrants survey data (usually released at the end of May) has been delayed slightly and is now expected to be released at the end of June 2014.
Recently the NMSU contacted a diverse range of clients and stakeholders to contribute to our 2013 Data Needs Review. This review was conducted to revisit and update our understanding of the key priority areas for migrant data as this data is important for prioritising, developing and evaluating policy on migrants. For those who contributed to the review, we are very appreciate of your time and interest in providing us with this information. The evaluation phase of the review has been concluded and a paper will be presented to the Migrant Statistics Management Board in late April 2014.
As always, I hope you find this newsletter both informative and interesting. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions about the work of the National Migrant Statistics Unit please feel free to contact us at migrant.statistics.unit@abs.gov.au.
Andrew Middleton
Director
Culture, Recreation and Migrant Statistics
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