5.5 A difficulty in accurately estimating the number of births and deaths stems from the fact that while the vast majority are registered promptly, a small proportion of registrations are delayed for months or even years. Lags or accumulations in birth and death registrations can be caused by either:
- late notification of a birth or death to a state or territory registry
- delays arising from incomplete information supplied for a registration
- procedural changes affecting the processing cycles in any of the state and territory registries
- resolution of issues that may arise within the ABS or registry processing systems.
5.6 The following graph shows the variability between states/territories, and the greater lags for births than for deaths.
5.1 Births and deaths,
Average interval between occurrence and registration -