Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (commonly known by its acronym, SEIFA) is a product that enables the assessment of the welfare of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n communities. The indexes have been created by the

Australian Bureau of Statistics The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is the independent statutory agency of the Australian Government responsible for statistical collection and analysis and for giving evidence-based advice to federal, state and territory governments ...

, the national

statistical Statistics (from German: ''Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, industria ...

agency Agency may refer to: Organizations * Institution, governmental or others ** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients ** Employment agency, a business that ...

. The source of the data is derived from the five-yearly

Census of Population and Housing The Census in Australia, officially the Census of Population and Housing, is the national census in Australia that occurs every five years. The census collects key demographic, social and economic data from all people in Australia on census nig ...

, and is calculated using

principal component analysis Principal component analysis (PCA) is a popular technique for analyzing large datasets containing a high number of dimensions/features per observation, increasing the interpretability of data while preserving the maximum amount of information, and ...

Domains and variables

First produced in 1971, SEIFA is primarily used to rank areas according to socio-economic advantage and disadvantage based on census data. The census variables used cover a number of domains and include

household income Household income is a measure of the combined incomes of all people sharing a particular household or place of residence. It includes every form of income, e.g., salaries and wages, retirement income, near cash government transfers like food stamp ...

, education, employment, occupation,

housing Housing, or more generally, living spaces, refers to the construction and assigned usage of houses or buildings individually or collectively, for the purpose of shelter. Housing ensures that members of society have a place to live, whether it ...

and other indicators of advantage and disadvantage. Combined, the indexes provide more general measures of socio-economic status than is given by measuring one of the domains in isolation. SEIFA consists of four indexes, each being a summary of a different set of census variables:

Calculation method

Principal Component Analysis is used to create SEIFA. This method creates a summary measure of a group of variables, in this case related to socio-economic advantage and disadvantage. In a paper presented by the

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

Department of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy at the Australian Population Association 2004 conference, it was claimed that SEIFA was not an accurate measure of social and economic disadvantage for

indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...

, especially where SEIFA is used at a small area level, and the populations or households in each area are relatively homogeneous.

Publication

SEIFA is published every five years. Formerly available only to subscribers, SEIFA was made available for free on the Australian Bureau of Statistics website after changes in legislation relating to all Australian Bureau of Statistics electronic products in 2005–06. SEIFA is used by federal, state and local government agencies as well as community and business groups. The most recent issue is based on the 2011 Australian census which was released in March 2013.

References

External links

Census of Population and Housing: Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), Australia, 2011
nbsp; on the

website
Census of Population and Housing: Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), Australia, 2011
nbsp;{{endash Frequently Asked Questions, SEIFA 2011 Demographics of Australia

Domains and variables

Calculation method

Publication

See also

References

External links