Precisely Base Demographics Release 3 dataset for Australia is derived from the release of the SEIFA dataset. The SEIFA dataset combines Census data such as income, education, employment, occupation, housing and family structure to summarise the socio-economic characteristics of an area. Each area receives a SEIFA score indicating how relatively advantaged or disadvantaged that area is compared with other areas.
SEIFA is a collection of four indexes, each summarising a different aspect of the socio-economic conditions in an area using different Census data:
- the Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD) focuses on both advantage and disadvantage
- the Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage (IRSD) focuses on relative socio-economic disadvantage
- the Index of Education and Occupation (IEO) focuses on relative Education and Occupation advantage and disadvantage
- the Index of Economic Resources (IER) focuses on Economic advantage and disadvantage.
The same area may score differently for each index due to their constituent variables.