Conceptualising and Measuring Spatial Indicators of Employment Through a Liveability Lens

Hannah Badland (), Melanie Davern, Karen Villanueva, Suzanne Mavoa, Allison Milner, Rebecca Roberts and Billie Giles-Corti
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Hannah Badland: The University of Melbourne
Melanie Davern: The University of Melbourne
Karen Villanueva: The University of Melbourne
Suzanne Mavoa: The University of Melbourne
Allison Milner: The University of Melbourne
Rebecca Roberts: The University of Melbourne
Billie Giles-Corti: The University of Melbourne

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2016, vol. 127, issue 2, No 5, 565-576

Abstract: Abstract Employment is a well-known social determinant of health and wellbeing and important for the liveability of a region. Yet, spatial data are rarely used to understand barriers and facilitators of accessing employment within a city. Therefore it remains challenging to plan cities that provide equitable opportunities for urban job seekers. This paper sought to: (1) identify urban planning and neighbourhood spatial attributes that facilitate access to employment; (2) conceptualise how neighbourhood attributes that facilitate accessible urban employment may be related to health and wellbeing behaviours and outcomes; and (3) isolate potentially important neighbourhood-level spatial measures that policy-makers and planners could use to assess urban employment accessibility. A conceptual framework was developed through a social determinants of health lens, where more upstream (e.g., neighbourhood attributes) and more downstream (e.g., behaviours, intermediate outcomes) determinants of urban employment were identified in relation to long-term health and social outcomes of interest. Six potential neighbourhood spatial measures of employment were identified. These were classified into measures of: access to employment (n = 4), local employment (n = 1), and neighbourhood employment level (n = 1). The spatial measures proposed rely on routinely collected administrative datasets existing within Australia (i.e., census data); therefore can be replicated over time and data are available nationally. Together, this research identified a suite of potential (and readily available) spatial measures that can be used to assess selected neighbourhood attributes as they relate to urban employment access. Such spatial measures can be used to inform future planning decisions that integrate policies across multiple sectors, thereby improving employment accessibility in an urban context.

Keywords: Geographical information systems; Liveability; Policy; Social determinants of health; Urban planning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11205-015-0978-6

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