Around 107,000 young children from birth to six-years-old are experiencing significant socio-economic disadvantage in Australia. Understanding where these children are helps us better advocate for the services they need.

This article looks at the geographic spread of significant early childhood disadvantage in Australia and identifies locations with the highest levels of disadvantage. It also quantifies the level of need in each location to target and advocate for early childhood hubs.

It also provides data which will help identify areas of need for service providers and funders working in child and family related fields. An interactive map showcases this need data. 

The data demonstrates significant variability across communities in terms of the overall population of children aged birth to six-years-old and the proportion of those children experiencing the most significant disadvantage. In addition, the density of the childhood population (the number of children per/km2) experiencing significant hardship varies enormously.

The need ranking results show that the eastern states make up the greatest proportion of the 706 communities, largely due to the high concentration of the Australian population in metropolitan areas in eastern states. Regional and rural areas also rank highly in terms of relative levels of need. So too do the growth corridors in the cities that have experienced significantly high population growth. 

Communities ranked as having the highest levels of community need have a higher number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children relative to the national average. Communities in major cities tend to have larger actual populations of children experiencing significant hardship.

What the data shows is that there is no typical remote, regional or metropolitan community and the needs of each will be unique. While these communities share some common characteristics of socio-economic disadvantage, they are very diverse in terms of geographical isolation and cultural attributes. This raises important questions for policy makers in terms of how to ensure the best outcomes for these children.

The interactive map spotlights the 706 communities ranked according to the extent of socio-economic disadvantage and childhood vulnerability in those areas and provides key statistics for each area including the number of children and the location of existing hubs.