Creating a sense of ‘closure’: Providing confidence intervals on some recent estimates of Indigenous populations

The error of closure is the population growth that cannot be accounted for by either natural increase or quantifiable non-demographic factors, and is an issue that is particularly pronounced for indigenous peoples. This paper estimates Australia’s indigenous population using the dual system estimation method, and compares these to those produced using the standard undercount method. The main conclusion is that dual system estimates of the indigenous population appear to be reasonably accurate at the national level, which provide an appreciation of the reliability of existing estimates. Notwithstanding, policy makers need to take into account that population statistics are merely estimates.