Estimating intercensal Indigenous employment change, 1991-96

Abstract

The 1996 Census count of Indigenous Australians included a substantial number of individuals who were not recorded as Indigenous by the previous census. This paper considers the implications of this for interpreting change in employment numbers and provides a methodology for reconciling census data.

This task is urgent because policy makers rely heavily on census data to measure outcomes and establish trends. At face value, results from the 1996 Census present a good news story - an increase of 25,000 people in work, representing a 44 per cent growth since 1991. Such growth is scarcely credible in the context of previously observed Indigenous employment trends as well as what is known about the performance of the labour market generally. How then is it to be interpreted?