Surveying Mobile Populations: Lessons from Recent Longitudinal Surveys of Indigenous Australians

Abstract

Geographically mobile populations are notoriously difficult to survey, especially in a crosscultural context. In broad terms, it is difficult to ensure that respondents are representative of the underlying population, can be relocated, and that data obtained are relevant to them. At a practical level, the problem can be as basic as not having any well-formed notion of what defines a household. Consequently, the resulting analysis of households is at best imprecise and, at worst, conceptually confused. This article documents the lessons for the design and conduct of longitudinal data collection from three recent surveys of an exceptionally mobile population, Indigenous Australians. There appears to be a trade-off between cultural relevance, data quality, response rates and survey costs. The use of Indigenous interviewers does not, in itself, guarantee that response rates will be acceptable.

Can we count? Enumerating births in two remote Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory

“…However, Aboriginal people often have multiple residences across different locations 12 and may ‘belong’ to multiple communities 10 . Mobility is a norm for many Aboriginal women 2,13–18 and is influenced by personal circumstances, cultural obligations, ceremonial practices/duties, seasonal variations, and access to mainstream services 13…”

“…The issue of mobility in the Northern Territory and its impact on administrative data is well known to Department of Health 20,21 . A significant body of work using Census data describes permanent and temporary Aboriginal mobility and its implications for planning, service delivery and data interpretation 2,13–18 . However, there is little published literature regarding birth count accuracy in the Territory, and the influence and implications of Aboriginal mobility.…”

A Cohort Analysis of the Determinants of Employment and Labour Force Participation: Indigenous and Non‐Indigenous Australians, 1981 to 1996

“…That is, heterogeneity distorts all OLS estimates, irrespective of whether the CDEP scheme is an issue. Consequently, it is important to redouble efforts to collect longitudinal data for all segments of the Australian population, including Indigenous people (Hunter and Smith 2000). There are a number of possible explanations for a higher rate of return to education for Indigenous Australians, including that educational attainment is a stronger signal of productivity for the Indigenous population.…”

The Effectiveness of Indigenous Job Search Strategies

“…6 The relatively low rate of obtaining interviews from the initial sample may, in part, be the result of the relatively long period of time (up to 12 months) between sample extraction and the interviews being conducted. This is likely to have been exacerbated by the relatively high geographic mobility rate of Indigenous Australians (Hunter & Smith, 2002). Evidence for this explanation is provided by the fact that of those not interviewed, in almost one-third of the cases this was because the person had moved and the new address was not available.…”