Explore Indicators
Confidence in maintaining local population
What is the indicator?
This indicator is similar to the Migration intentions indicator, in that it considers that an increase in the proportion of people shifting away from a community is an indication the community is struggling to provide some of the conditions needed to support a high quality of life for all of its residents. However, whereas the migration intentions indicator asks a person about their personal migration intentions, this indicator asks whether the person believes outmigration is causing problems for the local community. This means it considers whether outmigration has reached levels where it presents challenges to social cohesion and functioning of the community.
What can this tell us about wellbeing?
If many people in a community are worried about the number of people who are choosing to shift away, it suggests a lack of confidence in the ability of the community to provide the conditions needed forthose living in it to have a good quality of life.
Advantages and disadvantages of this indicator
Advantages: Understanding concerns about outmigration provides a useful insight into whether population decline is a significant concern for local residents.
Disadvantages: Sometimes residents may not be aware how many people are leaving a community, or may report concern when outmigration is not as high as they perceive it to be.
What measures should I use for this indicator?
Concerns about outmigration are examined in the annual Regional Wellbeing Survey (RWS), and can be measured in any community survey.
Measure
The Regional Wellbeing Survey includes a question asking about whether people leaving the community is a significant problem in the local area, available via data tables and the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard. Data are published for Australia, states and territories, regional Australia, and a range of geographic regions. The smallest scale at which data are available is the local government area (LGA), although sample sizes are too small to report data for some smaller population LGAs in rural Australia. Where this is the case, findings are published for a larger region that includes that LGA.
You can use data on confidence in maintaining the local population from the Regional Wellbeing Survey in a number of ways:
- Directly source data about your community or region from the results published each year in data tables and the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard
- Include the same question in your own survey, and draw on Regional Wellbeing Survey data to provide comparison data that enables you to assess how your community is going compared to others of similar size, or to the average for regional areas in your state/territory, or across regional Australia, urban Australia, or Australia as a whole
- Include additional questions asking residents what is driving their concern about outmigration.
In general, interpretation of this measure is relatively simple – an increase in concern about outmigration suggest the community may no longer be supporting as high a quality of life for its residents as it did previously.
The primary data source available for this measure is the Regional Wellbeing Survey. Data are updated annually, and available in two formats: data tables, and the Regional Wellbeing Dashboard.
The questions included in the Regional Wellbeing Survey are described below. In addition to these questions, it is possible to ask residents who want to leave the community to identify why they want to leave, which can pinpoint where investment and action is needed to improve the ability of the local community to support a high quality of life for all residents.
| Question/item | Response options |
| To what extent are the following problems in your local community?
People shifting away from the area |
7 point scale from 1 (Not a problem) to 7 (Big problem), with a ‘Don’t know’ option also provided |
This measure can be included in your own survey. You can replicate questions used in the Regional Wellbeing Survey, or design your own that are focused on the specific issues of interest or concern in your community.