This figure examines the relationship between childcare access, neighbourhoods and the Index of Relative Socio-Economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD). IRSAD is a measure created by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) that summarises information about the economic and social conditions of people and households within an area, including both relative advantage and disadvantage measures. Measures used in the compilation of the scores include variables relating to level of education, income, labour force status, disability, home ownership and the number of bedrooms in a house.
This figure shows matching of neighbourhoods to their IRSAD decile, where 1 indicates the decile with the highest disadvantage and lowest advantage, and 10 indicates the decile with the lowest disadvantage and the highest advantage. The figure shows the median for each IRSAD decile and
The results of the analysis appear in Figure 12 below. In this figure, the median for each decile appears as a dot and the lines represent a range from the 25th to 75th percentile of childcare places per child for each decile group and the 25th to 75th percentile of childcare places per child for each decile group.
This figure shows that for neighbourhoods in the first to the sixth decile, there are relatively lower levels of childcare accessibility, with the median childcare accessibility at around 0.35 places per child for IRSAD deciles 1 through to 6.
But from the seventh decile upwards, the top 40%, as the IRSAD deciles increase so does the median number of childcare places available per child. In the 10th decile, the average number of childcare places per child is 0.46. This suggests that it is the most advantaged neighbourhoods in Australia that have the greatest childcare access.