Rent (weekly) Dollar Values (RNTD, RNTRD)
This variable records the amount of rent paid by a household on a weekly basis for the dwelling in which they were enumerated on Census night. This data item is applicable to occupied private dwellings being rented (including those being occupied rent free). This represents 29.4% of all occupied private dwellings enumerated in the 2016 Census.
How this variable is created
Data for this variable is derived using data collection from the Tenure Type and Household Payments questions on the Census Household Form. Images of the questions are provided below.
Household payments data is automatically captured from numeric text responses. If rental payment responses are reported as a fortnightly or monthly figure they are derived to a weekly figure. Responses to the tenure type question are used to determine whether payments are recorded as rent or loan repayments.
Variable history
Information on how much rent is paid for a specific private dwelling has been collected for all censuses since 1911.
Since the 1996 Census, the actual dollar amount paid for a dwelling has been collected rather than range data. This is due to the emergence of shared equity, rent-buy schemes and a strong user demand.
For the 2006 and 2011 Censuses, the order of questions was changed to position the tenure type question before the mortgage repayments/rent and landlord type questions. Sequencing from the tenure type question directs respondents who indicate that they own their own home past these questions. This ordering has been retained for the 2016 Census.
The categories for the dollar ranges have been revised for the 2016 Census. Some codes have also been amended.
Non-response rate
Item non-response rates are a measure of how many questions were not responded to as a proportion of the total number of questions applicable to the dwelling. In this instance the response is left as not stated.
The majority of item non-response is attributable to the households who did not respond to the Census at all. Refer to item non-response rates for more information. The second and smaller contributor to item non-response is when people return a Census form but may not answer a particular question(s). For more information, refer to Understanding Census data quality.
The non-response rate for this variable was 3.4% (3.8% in 2011).
Data usage notes
This process is subject to some recognition error, particularly when responses incorrectly include cents and the decimal point is missing or unclear. All responses ending in '00' were checked for recognition error, as were other unlikely dollar values. While the data is subject to normal sample checks to ensure an acceptable level of quality, numeric responses are accepted as reported by respondents on the form.
Further information
A definition of Rent is available in the 2016 Census Dictionary.
Household form question image
Questions 56 and 58 as they appeared on the 2016 Census Household Paper Form:
A text only version of the online Census Household form is available from the Downloads tab.
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