Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (commonly known by its acronym, SEIFA) is a product that summarizes the relative socio-economic characteristics of

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n communities. The indexes have been created by the

Australian Bureau of Statistics The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is an List of Australian Government entities, Australian Government agency that collects and analyses statistics on economic, population, Natural environment, environmental, and social issues to advi ...

, the national

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

agency. The source of the data is derived from the five-yearly Census of Population and Housing, and is calculated using principal component analysis (PCA).

Domains and variables

First produced following the 1971 Census, SEIFA is primarily used to rank areas according to socio-economic advantage and disadvantage based on census data. The census variables include

household income Household income is a measure of income received by the household sector. It includes every form of cash income, e.g., salaries and wages, retirement income, investment income and cash transfers from the government. It may include near-cash gover ...

, education, employment, occupation,

housing Housing refers to a property containing one or more Shelter (building), shelter as a living space. Housing spaces are inhabited either by individuals or a collective group of people. Housing is also referred to as a human need and right to ...

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

Calculation method

Principal component analysis (PCA) 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 Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

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 are people with familial heritage from, or recognised membership of, the various ethnic groups living within the territory of contemporary Australia prior to History of Australia (1788–1850), British colonisation. The ...

, 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 and is available for free on the Australian Bureau of Statistics website. SEIFA is used by federal, state and local government agencies as well as community and business groups. The most recent issue of SEIFA is based on the 2021 Australian Census and was released on 27 April 2023.

References

External links

Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), Australia
nbsp; on the

website
Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA): Technical Paper
nbsp;{{endash on the

website Demographics of Australia

Domains and variables

Calculation method

Publication

See also

References

External links