Indigenous families experience substantial and multiple forms of economic burden arising from the size and structure of their families and households. Indigenous households are more likely to have more than one family in residence than other Australian households and are more likely to be multi-generational with older Indigenous people living with younger people in extended family households.

Indigenous households are more likely to be multi-generational and have several families in residence than other Australian households. Equivalence scales attempt to control for family size and composition and the relative costs of maintaining various families. We use the 1995 National Health Survey to examine how variations in the assumptions underlying equivalence scales, such as household composition and economies of size, affect poverty measures for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.