As part of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Census Data Enhancement project, the Migrants Quality Study was conducted to assess the feasibility of linking the Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s Settlement Database (SDB) to the Statistical Longitudinal Census Dataset (SLCD), without the use of name and address as linking variables.  This paper provides some background to the Migrants Quality Study, a brief description of the linking process, a thorough evaluation of the quality of the linked data, and then associated discussion about the usefulness of the linked data.

The results from this quality study indicate that linking the SDB to the SLCD is feasible and can produce useful information that no other data source currently provides.  However, some quality issues have been identified and need to be thoroughly understood to ensure that the linked data is correctly interpreted and appropriately used.

Image: Andrew Jeffrey