IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajarec/v69y2025i3p717-731.html

How Food Insecure Are People Living in Australia?

Author

Listed:
  • Chandana Maitra

Abstract

Food insecurity has been an overlooked problem in Australia, with the extant literature voicing concerns around the reliability of the official measure of food insecurity. I provide population prevalence estimates of food insecurity in Australia using fresh data on Food Insecurity Experience Scale reported, for the first time, in the 2020 Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. A single parameter Rasch model is estimated to establish the validity and reliability of FIES as a tool to measure food insecurity in Australia. Cross‐nationally comparable prevalence estimates, based on FAO's global reference scale, indicate that in 2020, one in sixteen people experienced moderate to severe food insecurity. Using Australia‐specific thresholds on the national scale, one in eleven people were food insecure. Severe food insecurity is a concern in Australia. South Australia and Queensland are the most food‐insecure states. Certain subpopulations, such as lone persons, are at higher risk of food insecurity. Household‐level measures of food insecurity may hide intrahousehold food hardship. The single‐item official measure underestimates the prevalence of food insecurity. Experiential measures such as the US Household Food Security Survey Module must be validated using national‐level data prior to their application as instruments to measure food insecurity in Australia. Food security policies must be context specific.

Suggested Citation

  • Chandana Maitra, 2025. "How Food Insecure Are People Living in Australia?," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 69(3), pages 717-731, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajarec:v:69:y:2025:i:3:p:717-731
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8489.70020
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8489.70020
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8489.70020?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeromey B. Temple, 2018. "The Association between Stressful Events and Food Insecurity: Cross-Sectional Evidence from Australia," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-15, October.
    2. Nord, Mark, 2009. "Food Insecurity in Households with Children: Prevalence, Severity, and Household Characteristics," Economic Information Bulletin 58616, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Barrett, Christopher B., 2002. "Food security and food assistance programs," Handbook of Agricultural Economics, in: B. L. Gardner & G. C. Rausser (ed.), Handbook of Agricultural Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 40, pages 2103-2190, Elsevier.
    4. Nicole Forry, 2009. "The Impact of Child Care Subsidies on Low-Income Single Parents: An Examination of Child Care Expenditures and Family Finances," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 43-54, March.
    5. Nord, Mark, 2012. "Assessing Potential Technical Enhancements to the U.S. Household Food Security Measures," Technical Bulletins 142549, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    6. Blumberg, S.J. & Bialostosky, K. & Hamilton, W.L. & Briefel, R.R., 1999. "The effectiveness of a short form of the household food security scale," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 89(8), pages 1231-1234.
    7. Smith, Michael D. & Kassa, Woubet & Winters, Paul, 2017. "Assessing food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean using FAO’s Food Insecurity Experience Scale," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 48-61.
    8. Herault, Nicolas & Ribar, David C., 2017. "Food insecurity and homelessness in the Journeys Home survey," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 52-66.
    9. Matthew Gray & Diana Smart, 2009. "Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children: A Valuable New Data Source for Economists," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 42(3), pages 367-376, September.
    10. King, Gary & Wand, Jonathan, 2007. "Comparing Incomparable Survey Responses: Evaluating and Selecting Anchoring Vignettes," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 46-66, January.
    11. Maitra, Chandana & Rao, D.S. Prasada, 2015. "Poverty–Food Security Nexus: Evidence from a Survey of Urban Slum Dwellers in Kolkata," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 308-325.
    12. Browning, Martin, 1992. "Children and Household Economic Behavior," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 1434-1475, September.
    13. Nord, Mark, 2012. "Assessing Potential Technical Enhancements to the U.S. Household Food Security Measures," Technical Bulletins 142549, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    14. Chavas, Jean-Paul, 2000. "The microeconomics of food security," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 44(01), pages 1-29.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Elena Grimaccia & Alessia Naccarato, 2019. "Food Insecurity Individual Experience: A Comparison of Economic and Social Characteristics of the Most Vulnerable Groups in the World," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 391-410, May.
    2. Elena Grimaccia & Alessia Naccarato, 2020. "Confirmatory factor analysis to validate a new measure of food insecurity: perceived and actual constructs," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1211-1232, August.
    3. Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Beymer, Matthew R., 2024. "Comparing Food Insecurity Among the U.S. Military and Civilian Adult Populations," Economic Research Report 341823, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    4. Matthew P. Rabbitt, 2013. "Measuring the Effect of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Participation on Food Insecurity Using a Behavioral Rasch Selection Model," UNCG Economics Working Papers 13-20, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics.
    5. Smith, Michael D. & Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Coleman- Jensen, Alisha, 2017. "Who are the World’s Food Insecure? New Evidence from the Food and Agriculture Organization’s Food Insecurity Experience Scale," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 402-412.
    6. Sunjin Ahn & Travis A. Smith & F. Bailey Norwood, 2020. "Can Internet Surveys Mimic Food Insecurity Rates Published by the US Government?," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(2), pages 187-204, June.
    7. Kwame Adjei‐Mantey & Millicent O. Awuku & Ruby V. Kodom, 2023. "Revisiting the determinants of food security: Does regular remittance inflow play a role in Ghanaian households? A disaggregated analysis," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(6), pages 1132-1146, August.
    8. Chandana Maitra & Sriram Shankar & D.S. Prasada Rao, 2016. "Income Poor or Calorie Poor? Who should get the Subsidy?," Discussion Papers Series 564, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    9. Victoria T. Tanaka & George Engelhard & Matthew P. Rabbitt, 2020. "Using a Bifactor Model to Measure Food Insecurity in Households with Children," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 492-504, September.
    10. Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Smith, Michael D., "undated". "Food Insecurity Among Working-Age Veterans," USDA Miscellaneous 311332, United States Department of Agriculture.
    11. Christian A. Gregory, 2020. "Are We Underestimating Food Insecurity? Partial Identification with a Bayesian 4-Parameter IRT Model," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 37(3), pages 632-655, October.
    12. MacLachlan, Matthew & Chelius, Carolyn & Short, Gianna, "undated". "Time-Series Methods for Forecasting and Modeling Uncertainty in the Food Price Outlook," USDA Miscellaneous 327370, United States Department of Agriculture.
    13. Ravallion, Martin, 2012. "Poor, or just feeling poor ? on using subjective data in measuring poverty," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5968, The World Bank.
    14. Adam M. Lippert & Barrett A. Lee, 2021. "Adult and Child Food Insecurity Among Homeless and Precariously-Housed Families at the Close of the Twentieth Century," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(2), pages 231-253, April.
    15. Ibrahim Kasujja & Hugo Melgar-Quinonez & Joweria Nambooze, 2023. "Day Scholars Food Insecurity Experience Scale-Survey Module (DSFIES-SM): Psychometric Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(4), pages 21582440231, December.
    16. Robert A. Moffitt & David C. Ribar, 2016. "Rasch Analyses of Very Low Food Security among Households and Children in the Three City Study," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(4), pages 1123-1146, April.
    17. Otto Lenhart, 2023. "The earned income tax credit and food insecurity," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(5), pages 1543-1570, October.
    18. Gouel, Christophe, 2013. "Optimal food price stabilisation policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 118-134.
    19. Parke E. Wilde & Irma Arteaga, 2024. "Household food security responses for SNAP participants and nonparticipants," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 46(4), pages 1338-1354, December.
    20. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Rabbitt, Matthew P. & Gregory, Christian A., "undated". "Examining an "Experimental" Food Security Status Classification Method for Households with Children," Technical Bulletins 264418, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajarec:v:69:y:2025:i:3:p:717-731. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aaresea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.