Poverty at the Local Level: National and Small Area Poverty Estimates by Family Type for Australia in 2006

There is a substantial literature within Australia examining poverty rates for different family types at the national level. This study presents the first Australian estimates of poverty rates for different types of families at a local level. This paper builds upon the SpatialMSM/08B model, which fuses together data from the 2006 Australian Bureau of Statistics Census of Population and Housing and the 2002–03 and 2003–04 Surveys of Income and Housing. We examine differences in rates of income poverty for lone persons, sole parents, couples and couples with children. The results show that people living by themselves and sole parents have the highest poverty rates. In addition, there are pronounced spatial differences in the poverty rates of people living in different family situations, although the highest poverty rates for all family types tend to be in Australia’s rural areas, with poverty clusters in most of the capital cities.

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