Life Course Data Initiative

The 2023-24 Commonwealth Budget delivered a $199.8 million package to target entrenched community disadvantage with a focus on intergenerational disadvantage, and improving child and family wellbeing.  The Treasury and Department of Social Services are leading the implementation of the package, with the support of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Further information on the Targeting Entrenched Disadvantage Package is available.

As part of the Budget commitment, the Australian Bureau of Statistics received $16.4 million to deliver the Life Course Data Initiative (LCDI), commencing July 2023. The LCDI is a four year program that will create a data asset and associated data insights to inform long term policy responses to address entrenched disadvantage. The LCDI focuses on improving data coverage over the early years of Australians’ lives, particularly ages 0-14, to better understand and target intergenerational disadvantage.

The LCDI is expected to help:

• researchers understand how and why intergenerational disadvantage is more prevalent in some geographic locations than others, and
• inform public policy response to alleviate place-based intergenerational disadvantage.  

The LCDI has not determined a single definition of entrenched disadvantage to be used for the initiative. The ABS will seek advice from experts to inform research and data priorities related to entrenched disadvantage and will consider this from a cross domain perspective.

The ABS will partner with the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Government to deliver the pilot LCDI. Over the next four years, the ABS will work closely with the ACT across all aspects of the pilot LCDI, including data integration and broader data sharing, governance processes, research and understanding community data needs. This will include safely linking data about a range of ACT Government services to the Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA) and building research partnerships to demonstrate its value in addressing entrenched disadvantage. 

The ABS will also work with the South Australia (SA) Government and University of Adelaide to link the Better Evidence Better Outcomes Linked Data (BEBOLD) asset to PLIDA to extend research opportunities for the pilot LCDI. This collaboration will provide important additional insights about entrenched disadvantage in regional and remote areas.

Life Course Data Initiative Dataset

The pilot Life Course Data Initiative dataset will expand the existing PLIDA asset by linking five additional datasets, including data from the Commonwealth, ACT and SA. Methodological enhancements will include improved linkage between individuals and their families and households, and enhanced capacity for longitudinal analysis.

Research Program

The ABS will facilitate research projects with four external organisations to demonstrate the value of the pilot LCDI dataset. Research projects will be supported through the project proposal, analysis and output phases.

ABS Statistical Program

The ABS will deliver an analytical program using the pilot LCDI dataset to promote broader access to key findings and support local region engagement. Outputs will be published on the ABS website, and may include composite indicators, experimental statistics and research papers.

Data Liaison Officers

Two ABS-supported Data Liaison Officers (DLOs) will be engaged to help local regions gain access to de-identified data which meets their specific needs and to support local decision-making.

• The LCDI is initially being run as a pilot between the years 2023-24 to 2026-27. The pilot phase will leverage the existing Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA).
• To generate analysis and insights, the LCDI will facilitate access by approved researchers to a de-identified longitudinal, spatially-enabled dataset for a birth cohort born in 2006-07.
• The LCDI will safely bring together a range of data across domains and across different levels of government.
• It will incorporate enhanced family and household linkage methodology to better understand families and household composition and structure.
• Improve access to data by making available de-identified data on the ABS website.
• The LCDI will involve working with communities to understand their data needs and to generate de-identified data that can be used for local decision-making.
• Research and analytical outputs will be generated to further understand entrenched disadvantage in Australia. This will be used to support policy and program design. 

• The LCDI Pilot will be created and protected under the Census and Statistics Act 1905, and comply with the Privacy Act.
• Research undertaken with the LCDI dataset will occur within the Five Safes framework.
• Researchers will be required to undertake ABS safe researcher training and sign relevant undertakings prior to accessing any de-identified data for research purposes. Aggregate data from the pilot will be made available on the ABS website.
• All unit record level data will be held within the secure DataLab environment only.
• An independent Privacy Impact Assessment will be completed for this initiative and published on the ABS website.

Research organisations that want more information should email the LCDI project team.

For more information about the LCDI, email our team.

Additional information:

How the ABS Manages Privacy

Five Safes Framework

Entrenched disadvantage package-Department of Social Services

Entrenched disadvantage- Parliament of Australia