Abstract
Local area population counts and estimates are crucial inputs into policy planning and processes. However, population mobility in general, as well as large numbers of visitors to particular areas, place additional demands on resources and those providing essential services. The literature identifies a pressing need for standardized quantitative measures of the volume, frequency and flows of Indigenous temporary mobility and comparable spatial scales. This paper presents an analysis of census data as it relates to Indigenous temporary mobility, and explores the spatial and demographic complexities involved. While the census remains the only consistent and nationally comprehensive data set on Indigenous temporary mobility that provides important insights, the overall findings from this analysis suggest that it remains a relatively blunt instrument in the task of identifying all the factors in Indigenous temporary movement. We conclude that researchers, policy makers and Indigenous populations must seek and develop additional data sources from which the drivers and dynamics of Indigenous temporary mobility and residency patterns may be identified.
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Notes
To smooth out the volatility caused by relatively small population sizes for single year age groups (especially for the Indigenous population), results are presented as a three-year moving average centred at that particular age. For example, the data point for 27 year-olds is the average percentage for 26, 27, and 28 year olds.
According to analysis based on the 2006 Census presented in Biddle and Yap (2010) 7.2% of Indigenous females aged 15–19 years had had at least one child. This rises very quickly to 42.6% for the population aged 20–24 and 70.8% for those aged 25–29.
When areas of analysis are grouped together into broad categories and variation in temporary mobility analysed through a regression approach, the random variation that arises from a slice-in-time data harvest is likely to even out, at least to a certain extent. The Adjusted R-Squared also provides an indication of the amount of variation at the Indigenous Area level that is explained by each of the models.
The base case for Model 2 is ‘major cities’ whereas the base case for Model 3 is ‘city areas’ in New South Wales. Those variables that are not significant at the 10% level of significance are labelled NS whereas those variables that are significant at the 5% level of significance only are labelled with an asterisk (*).
We use a linear and quadratic (squared) term because a visual analysis of the data suggested a non-linear relationship between the dependent variable and the Indigenous share of the area.
At the time of writing, there was no publicly available measure of remoteness by IARE. We constructed our own values by identifying the remoteness classification that was most common across the census collection districts within the IARE, weighted by the usual resident population.
The eight location types are defined as follows. City areas, large regional towns and small regional towns are IAREs in urban centres with a population greater than 100,000, between 10,000 and 100,000 and between 200 and 10,000, respectively. Regional rural areas are IAREs in dispersed locations in regional Australia. Remote towns and Indigenous towns are IAREs in urban centres in remote Australia with populations that are respectively less than or greater than 50% Indigenous. Town camps are special-purpose lease areas within remote urban centres that are designated as Aboriginal community living areas in particular remote towns. Remote dispersed settlements make up the balance of remote Australia. Although there were very few non-Indigenous Australians in town camps on the night of the Census, these areas were still included in the non-Indigenous estimates to maintain comparability with the Indigenous results.
According to Model 1, the percentage of the Indigenous population away from their place of usual residence at census enumeration is estimated to be at its highest when % of the population is Indigenous. This corresponds to an estimated value of 17.6% away from home. For the non-Indigenous population on the other hand, the maximum percentage of people away from their place of usual residence was estimated to be 81%, which corresponds to an Indigenous share in the area of 57.3%.
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Acknowledgments
A number of organizations and individuals provided helpful feedback on an early draft of this work, including officers of the Standing Committee for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs (SCATSIA) and the Productivity Commission. In addition we would like to thank John Taylor and Jon Altman from within CAEPR for detailed and constructive comments on earlier drafts of the paper as well as two anonymous referees. Finally and most importantly, we would like to thank Gillian Cosgrove who gave editorial assistance and prepared the final document as well as Mandy Yap and Hilary Bek for detailed proofing.
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Biddle, N., Prout, S. The geography and demography of Indigenous temporary mobility: an analysis of the 2006 census snapshot. J Pop Research 26, 305–326 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-010-9026-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12546-010-9026-1