Child Social Exclusion Index - Nurturing Inclusion: Paving the Way to Improved Child Wellbeing

Child Social Exclusion (CSE) is a multi-dimensional measure of child disadvantage. It extends the concept of child poverty by reflecting the extent to which children lack the opportunities and resources to participate fully in their communities and feel connected.

The CSE Index is an area-based indicator of the risk of social exclusion for Australian children. The index uses a wider concept of disadvantage than one focussed purely on income at the Statistical Area 2 (SA2) small area level.

This report updates the index of social exclusion risk for Australian children under 15 years of age based on data from the 2021 Census supplemented by additional administrative and microsimulated data. Six domains were used: socio-economic, education, connectedness, access to housing, health & community, and environment. The report also compares the patterns and distribution of the CSE Index findings across time (2016 and 2021) and against the spatial distribution of child poverty in 2021.