Ex-serving ADF members' income and sources of income

This section explores income support paid by Services Australia, demographic (that is, sex, age, and geographic location), and service-related characteristics of ex-serving ADF members with at least one day of service since 1 January 2001.

Income support payments are classed as benefits that generally serve as a recipient’s primary source of income; they are regular payments that assist with the day-to-day cost of living (AIHW 2021; Services Australia 2022). A range of payments by Services Australia and/or DVA are considered income support payments (DVA n.d.; Services Australia 2022). For this report, income support payments are limited to those paid by Services Australia and do not include payments from DVA.

For more information on the ex-serving ADF members population in scope for the analysis of income support, see Included in this analysis.

Key findings

• Ex-serving ADF members were less likely to receive income support paid by Services Australia compared with the Australian population.
  • Binomial logistic regression modelling was used to investigate the differences in the odds of receiving income support paid by Services Australia in 2017–18 between ex-serving ADF-members and the Australian population aged 17 years and over.
    • Controlling for the effects of sex, age and geography, ex-serving ADF members had 52% lower odds (95% CI 51% to 53%) of receiving income support paid by Services Australia than the Australian population.
  • In 2017–18, one in 10 (9.8%) ex-serving ADF males and around 1 in 8 (13%) ex-serving ADF females received income support paid by Services Australia, compared with 23% of Australian males and 29% of Australian females.
  • From 2013–14 to 2017–18, the percentage of ex-serving ADF members who received income support paid by Services Australia slowly decreased, while the percentage for the Australian population remained similar.
    • In 2013–14, 13% of ex-serving ADF males were receiving income support paid by Services Australia, compared with 9.8% in 2017–18. Ex-serving ADF females had a similar pattern, where 15% received income support paid by Services Australia in 2013–14 compared with 13% in 2017–18.
    • In 2013–14, 24% of Australian males and 30% of Australian females received income support paid by Services Australia, compared with 23% and 29% respectively in 2017–18.
• Binomial logistic regression modelling was also conducted to understand the association between various service characteristics of ex-service ADF members and whether they were receiving income support paid by Services Australia. When adjusting for other demographic and service characteristics in the model, the odds of receiving income support paid by Services Australia in 2017–18 were:
  • higher in the oldest and youngest age groups
    • 6.7 times as high (95% CI 6.0 to 7.5) for those aged 65 years and over as for those aged 25 to 34 years
    • 1.7 times as high (95% CI 1.6 to 1.9) for those aged 17 to 24 as for those aged 25–34
    • no significant difference was observed for other age groups
  • 2.8 times as high (95% CI 2.5 to 3.1) for those who served less than one year as for those who served 10 years or more
  • 2.2 times as high (95% CI 2.1 to 2.4) for those who separated as Other ranks as for those who separated as Commissioned Officers
  • 55% higher (95% CI 46% to 64%) for females compared with males
  • 49% higher (95% CI 42% to 57%) for those whose last separation reason was ’involuntary – other’ compared with those who separated voluntarily
  • 23% lower (95%CI 16% to 29%) for those who separated involuntarily for medical reasons than those who separated voluntarily.

The interactive data visualisation (Figure 10) presents data on the percentage of ex-serving ADF members receiving income support paid by Services Australia in 2017–18 by service characteristics, in comparison with the Australian population by demographic characteristics.

Figure 10: Percentages of ex-serving ADF members and Australian population who received for income support paid by Services Australia, by demographic and service-related characteristics, DOMINO 2017–18, PMKeyS

The interactive data visualisation (Figure 11) presents modelling data on the receipt of income support paid by Services Australia for ex-serving ADF members in 2017–18 by demographic and service characteristics. Select the Multivariate button to view difference between sub-population groups after adjusting for other factors in the model and use the Univariate button to view unadjusted results.

Figure 11: Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models of receipt of income support paid by Services Australia for ex-serving ADF members, DOMINO 2017–18, PMKeyS

Included in this analysis

This section includes an in-depth analysis of income support paid by Services Australia by demographic and service-related characteristics for the 2017–18 financial year, and trend analysis from 2013–14 to 2017–18.

The people described as receiving income support paid by Services Australia were those who had applied for one of the identified benefits or allowances and had been assessed by Services Australia as eligible to receive the payment. Payments data was not used to identify this group.

For the 2017–18 financial year, the in-scope population includes 105,000 ADF members who were ex-serving and alive as of 30 June 2017, aged at least 16 at hire date and 17 years and over in 2017. This study population was designed to ensure the ADF members were ex-serving and experienced the whole financial year for income purposes.

DVA also provides a range of income support payments to veterans including age pension, income support supplement, service pension, and veteran payment (DVA n.d.; Services Australia 2022). For this report, income support payments however, are limited to those paid by Services Australia and do not include payments from DVA. For information on reasons for the exclusion of DVA payments from the analysis, see Limitations related to quality and completeness of data sources.

Further information on population scope, analysis period and methodology can be found in Technical notes.

Excel source data tables are available from Data.