Measures of
Australia's
Progress
Barbara Dunlop
Australian Bureau of Statistics
Measuring Australia's Progress
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Look beyond Gross Domestic Product
Look at economic, social and environmental
concerns
Present these areas side by side
Readers make their own assessment about
whether life in Australia is getting better
Measuring Progress
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Present a balanced picture
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How many dimensions?
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What indicators?
Progress Dimensions
Individuals
Health
The economy and
economic
The environment
resources
National income
The natural landscape
- Biodiversity
- Land
- Inland waters
Living together
Family, community
and social cohesion
Education and
training
Economic hardship The Air and atmosphere Crime
Work
National wealth
Culture and leisure
Housing
Productivity
Competitiveness &
openness
Inflation
Oceans and estuaries
Democracy,
governance, and
citizenship
Communication
Transport
What makes a good headline
indicator?
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Relevant and summary
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Good and bad direction
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Focus on outcomes
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Good quality data
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Available as a time series
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Sensitive to movements in the underlying
phenomena
Intelligible and easy to interpret
Headline Indicators - Individuals
Dimension
Indicator
Health
Life expectancy at birth
Education
Proportion of 25-64 year olds with nonschool qualifications
Work
Unemployment rate
Headline Indicators - The economy
and economic resources
Dimension
Indicator
National income
Real net national disposable income per capita
Economic hardship
Real equivalised household income of those in
the 2nd and 3rd deciles
National wealth
Real national net worth per capita
Housing
No headline indicator
Productivity
Multifactor productivity
Headline Indicators - The Environment
Dimension
Indicator
Natural landscape biodiversity
Extinct, endangered & vulnerable birds & mammal species
Land clearing (hectares pa)
Natural landscape land
Salinity (assets at risk in 2000)
Natural landscape water
% of ground and surface water management units that are
highly or overdeveloped
Air
Fine particle pollution in major cities
- days health standards exceeded
Atmosphere
Net greenhouse gas emissions
Oceans and
estuaries
No headline indicator
- but information on fishing, pollution, water quality
Headline Indicators - Living together
Dimension
Indicator
Family, community and
social cohesion
No headline indicator
- but various indicators including
family types, children without an employed parent,
voluntary work, social participation and religious
activities, suicide and drug-related deaths
Crime
Household and personal crime rates
Governance, democracy
and citizenship
No headline indicator - but various indicators on voting,
election candidates, citizenship rates, and women in
parliament and other decision making roles
Measures of Australia's Progress
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National level focus
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State/Territory data where appropriate
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Data for population groups where appropriate
What MAP doesn't provide
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No bottom-line measure of progress
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No assessment of government policy
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No (direct) assessment of 'sustainability'
MAP Indicators at finer levels?
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MAP intentionally national focus
May be possible to produce indicators at finer
levels
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Does the indicator make sense at the finer level?
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Does the data source support the finer level?
Other initiatives - international
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Measuring Ireland's Progress
Monitoring progress towards a sustainable New
Zealand
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UK - Sustainable development indicators
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USA - Key National Indicators Initiative
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Canadian Index of Wellbeing
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International bodies - eg OECD World Forum
The future for MAP
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Evaluation and feedback for MAP suite of
products
MAP 2007: summary indicators and 'At a
Glance' booklet scheduled for April 2007
Review of MAP to be undertaken to feed into
the next full edition - scheduled for release in
2008
MAP review for 2008
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Review of MAP will encompass:
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revisiting the framework for MAP
review of the structure and content of selected
chapters of MAP
some review of indicators - particularly where no
headline indicator is currently identified
look at the frequency of release
Feedback and ideas welcome
Some questions
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How can we best ensure that MAP stimulates
and informs public debate?
How might MAP be more useful to policy
makers?
Have we got the right areas of progress and/or
the right indicators?
What should the next edition of MAP look like?