This dataset contains estimates of the prevalence of homelessness on Census night 2011, derived from the Census of Population and Housing using the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) definition of homelessness. Prevalence is an estimate of how many people experienced homelessness at a particular point-in-time.
Data is by SA2 2011 boundaries. Periodicity: 5 yearly. For more information visit the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The most common poverty measures, including that used by the OECD, focus on income based approaches. One of the most common measures of income poverty is the proportion of households with income …Show full descriptionThe most common poverty measures, including that used by the OECD, focus on income based approaches. One of the most common measures of income poverty is the proportion of households with income less than half median equivalised disposable household income (which is set as the poverty line); this is a relative income poverty measure as poverty is measured by reference to the income of others rather than in some absolute sense. Australia has one of the highest household disposable incomes in the world, which means that an Australian relative income poverty line is set at a high level of income compared to most other countries. OECD statistics on Australian poverty 2015-16 (based on ABS Survey of Income and Housing data and applying a poverty line of 50% of median income) determined the Australian poverty rate was over 25% before taxes and transfers, but falls around 12% after taxes and transfers. Though measuring poverty through application of solely an income measure is not considered comprehensive for an Australian context, however, it does demonstrate that the Australian welfare system more than halves the number of Australians that would otherwise be considered as at risk of living in poverty under that measure. It is important to consider a range of indicators of persistent disadvantage to understand poverty and hardship and its multidimensional nature. Different indicators point to different dimensions of poverty. While transient poverty is a problem, the experience of persistent poverty is of deeper concern, particularly where families experience intergenerational disadvantage and long-term welfare reliance. HILDA data from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research shows the Distribution of number of years in poverty 2001–2015. The figure focuses on the longer term experience of working age adults and shows that while people do fall into poverty, only a small proportion of people are persistently poor.

The most common poverty measures, including that used by the OECD, focus on income based approaches. One of the most common measures of income poverty is the proportion of households with income less than half median equivalised disposable household income (which is set as the poverty line); this is a relative income poverty measure as poverty is measured by reference to the income of others rather than in some absolute sense. Australia has one of the highest household disposable incomes in the world, which means that an Australian relative income poverty line is set at a high level of income compared to most other countries.

OECD statistics on Australian poverty 2015-16 (based on ABS Survey of Income and Housing data and applying a poverty line of 50% of median income) determined the Australian poverty rate was over 25% before taxes and transfers, but falls around 12% after taxes and transfers. Though measuring poverty through application of solely an income measure is not considered comprehensive for an Australian context, however, it does demonstrate that the Australian welfare system more than halves the number of Australians that would otherwise be considered as at risk of living in poverty under that measure.
It is important to consider a range of indicators of persistent disadvantage to understand poverty and hardship and its multidimensional nature. Different indicators point to different dimensions of poverty. While transient poverty is a problem, the experience of persistent poverty is of deeper concern, particularly where families experience intergenerational disadvantage and long-term welfare reliance. HILDA data from the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research shows the Distribution of number of years in poverty 2001–2015. The figure focuses on the longer term experience of working age adults and shows that while people do fall into poverty, only a small proportion of people are persistently poor.

This dataset contains estimates of the prevalence of homelessness on Census night 2011, derived from the Census of Population and Housing using the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) definition of homelessness. Prevalence is an estimate of how many people experienced homelessness at a particular point-in-time. The ABS uses six homeless operational groups to present the estimates of homelessness. Estimates are also presented for selected groups of people who may be marginally housed and whose living arrangements are close to the statistical boundary of homelessness and who may be at risk of homelessness. Data is by SA3 2011 boundaries. Periodicity: 5 yearly. For more information visit the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

This dataset contains estimates of the prevalence of homelessness on Census night 2011, derived from the Census of Population and Housing using the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) definition of homelessness. Prevalence is an estimate of how many people experienced homelessness at a particular point-in-time. Data is by LGA 2011 boundaries. Periodicity: 5 yearly. For more information visit the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The Australian Statistical Geography Standard (ASGS) defines a series of nested geographical areas in Australia known as Statistical Area (SA) Levels. SA3 regions are aggregations of SA2 regions, and SA2 regions are aggregations of SA1 regions. This data set contains the shapefiles of all SA1, SA2, and SA3 regions across Australia at the time of the 2011 census, originally downloaded from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

This data set also contains income information from the 2011 census, at the SA1 and SA2 level in New South Wales (NSW). Specifically, it contains the number of families of various types within a range of weekly income brackets.

Sainsbury-Dale et al. (2023) used a subset of this data set in a study on poverty levels in an area of (NSW) surrounding Sydney.

References

Sainsbury-Dale, M., Zammit-Mangion, A., and Cressie, N. (2023) "Modelling Big, Heterogeneous, Non-Gaussian Spatial and Spatio-Temporal Data using FRK", Journal of Statistical Software, to appear.

NATSEM estimates of housing stress (2006 and 2010) and estimates of poverty variables (2006) of SLAs, excluding SLAs in Brisbane and Canberra, in Australia. These data were derived from spatial microsimulation using 2006 Census benchmarks (SPATIALMSM08b) applied to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Confidentialised Unit Record File data. For housing stress, the indicator is based on a commonly used measure of housing stress known as the 30/40 rule. Using this definition, a household is said to be in housing stress if it spends more than 30 per cent of its gross income on housing costs and if it also falls into the bottom 40 per cent of the equivalised disposable household income distribution. The poverty indicator represents the percentage of people in households where income is below the poverty line. The poverty line has been set at half the median OECD equivalised household disposable income.