Measuring violence against women in Australia

Abstract

This paper describes the key sources of data for measuring violence against women in Australia and how the results relate to one another. It describes the differences in collection methodologies used in different surveys (including short module approaches and full specialised surveys) and considers some of the implications in relation to results. The paper draws on recent work to bring together and confront data from a range of survey and administrative sources around the issue of violence against women and personal safety more generally. There are a number of known issues in comparing data on assault from different collections in Australia, and some work is underway to determine appropriate approaches for future collections.

It should be noted that this paper has been revised since it was presented at the Work Session on Gender Statistics held in Geneva on 18–20 October 2004. Since that time, data from the Australian components of both the 2002–2003 International Violence Against Women Survey, and the 2004 International Crime Victims Survey have been released. Relevant information from these two surveys has as a consequence also been included here. Updated information on the status of ABS activities in producing data related to violence against women is also provided in this revised version.