Bonding Capital (Civic Engagement)
Statistics on this page describe the 6,766 scored localities with more than 200 residents. 14,308 localities are scored in all.
One of six Sentinel components. Reads organised community support in a locality from one Census measure: the share of people aged 15 and over who did voluntary work through an organisation or group in the twelve months before the 2021 Census, among those who answered the question. The score is the locality’s percentile rank on that rate among localities with more than 200 residents: a higher score means a higher relative rate of volunteering.
The node is a proxy for bonding ties, the close relationships among family, friends and neighbours. No Census question measures those ties directly. Across Victoria’s 79 council areas, the volunteering rate rises with survey measures of trust, of feeling valued by society and of regular contact with friends (Victorian Population Health Survey 2020; correlations of 0.47 to 0.54).
Two positions. Each locality with more than 200 residents holds a national position, which is the score, and a position among localities in the same remoteness area. Volunteering is more common outside the major cities, and the second position compares like with like.
Readings held beside the score (2021 Census). They do not enter it.
- Unpaid assistance to a person with a disability, health condition or due to old age: 13.9% in the median locality
- Unpaid child care: 28.0% in the median locality
- Care of other people’s children: 7.7% in the median locality
Measure change, 12 October 2026. The score read three Census measures until this date: volunteering, unpaid assistance and unpaid child care, averaged. It now reads volunteering alone. The two care measures did not track survey measures of trust or contact, and are shown beside the score. Every locality’s reading was restated.
Only voluntary work done through an organisation or group is counted. Informal helping between neighbours, friends and relatives is not.
The rate of voluntary work is higher in smaller places, so smaller localities tend to score higher.
Localities where helping is commonly informal are likely to be understated. In the ABS General Social Survey for 2025, people born overseas who arrived in the last ten years volunteered through an organisation at 14.3%, against 24.1% of people born in Australia, and volunteered informally at 38.7%, against 27.7%.
The rate is not adjusted for age. Volunteering varies little between age groups, from 11% to 19% below the age of 85, and an age-adjusted rate ranks localities almost identically.
The Census was taken in August 2021, while public health restrictions applied in parts of the country.
The score is a percentile rank, so across the 6,766 localities with more than 200 residents it is spread evenly from 0 to 100 and averages 50. It differs by remoteness: localities in major cities average 35.9, inner regional 56.4, outer regional 64.3, remote 68.5 and very remote 40.5. A locality of 200 residents or fewer is placed against the same distribution and is not published in any ranking, list or map.
Alignment with the pillar. Across the 6,765 localities with more than 200 residents scored on both, this component and APN Sentinel™ (Safety & Sentiment Index) (24120) have a correlation of 0.55, on a scale where 1 means the two scores move together exactly and 0 means they are unrelated. The two are moderately aligned: a locality that scores high on this component tends to score above average on Sentinel, with many exceptions. This component is one of the pillar’s six inputs, so part of that alignment is built into the pillar itself.
Each bar is the average score of the jurisdiction’s localities with more than 200 residents, with every locality counted equally regardless of population; the dashed line marks the national mean of 50.00. The Australian Capital Territory averages highest at 60.8 (100 localities) and the Northern Territory lowest at 34.2 (162). South Australia averages 60.1, Tasmania 59.4, Western Australia 56.9, Victoria 53.6, Queensland 45.4 and New South Wales 44.7. Other Territories (4 localities) are not shown.
The other five components of APN Sentinel™ (Safety & Sentiment Index) (24120).
- Percentile rank of the volunteering rate against localities with more than 200 residents
- Methodology v0.5, 12 October 2026
