With the current policy focus on disability, it is important to know as much as possible about the distribution of disability within the Indigenous population and how this compares to the non-Indigenous population. This presentation is based on a CAEPR Census Series paper on Disability co-authored with Professor Matthew Gray and Mandy Yap. In that paper, we used the recently released 2011 Censuses to provide up-to-date information on the demographic, geographic and socioeconomic distribution of the Indigenous population who reported a profound or severe disability.

The presentation will demonstrate that in 2011, across the age distribution a much higher proportion of Indigenous Australians reported a disability than their non-Indigenous counterparts. The presentation will also show, however, there are important gender, family, employment and geographic differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians with a disability. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of some of the implications of the results for the delivery of disability services to Indigenous Australians.

Dr Nick Biddle is a Fellow at the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research.