The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey is an Australian household-based panel study which began in 2001. It has been used for examining issues such as the incidence of persistent poverty; assets and income in the transition to retirement; the correlates and impact of changes in physical and mental health; and an international comparison of wealth and happiness. The survey is widely used by Australian and international researchers in the fields of

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of s ...

and

social policy Social policy is a plan or action of government or institutional agencies which aim to improve or reform society. Some professionals and universities consider social policy a subset of public policy, while other practitioners characterize soci ...

and by the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Governmen ...

. The HILDA survey is managed by a small team from

the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research (often simply referred to as "The Melbourne Institute") is an Australian economic research institute based in Melbourne, Victoria. The institute is a department of the Faculty of Bu ...

at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb ...

and the national fieldwork is carried out by

ACNielsen The Nielsen Corporation, self-referentially known as The Nielsen Company, and formerly known as ACNielsen or AC Nielsen, is a global marketing research firm, with worldwide headquarters in New York City, United States. Regional headquarters for ...

and

Roy Morgan Research Roy Morgan, formerly known as Roy Morgan Research, is an independent Australian social and political market research and public opinion statistics company headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria. It operates nationally as Roy Morgan and internatio ...

. The survey is funded by the Australian Government through the Department of Social Services. HILDA has the following key features: *It collects information about

economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...

and subjective

well-being Well-being, or wellbeing, also known as wellness, prudential value or quality of life, refers to what is intrinsically valuable relative ''to'' someone. So the well-being of a person is what is ultimately good ''for'' this person, what is in th ...

, labour market dynamics and family dynamics. *Special questionnaire modules are included each wave and have covered topics such as

wealth Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. This includes the core meaning as held in the originating Old English word , which is from an I ...

retirement Retirement is the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from one's active working life. A person may also semi-retire by reducing work hours or workload. Many people choose to retire when they are elderly or incapable of doing their j ...

and

fertility Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Ferti ...

intentions. *The wave 1 panel consisted of 7,682

households A household consists of two or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is im ...

and 19,914 individuals. In wave 11 this was topped up with an additional 2,153 households and 5,477 individuals *Interviews are conducted annually with all adult members of each household. Children are interviewed once they turn 15. *The panel members are followed over time. *Funding has been guaranteed for 18 waves, and the survey is expected to continue beyond wave 18. *Data releases occur at the start of December. The release in December 2019 was for data collected from 2001 (wave 1) to 2018 (wave 18). HILDA data, when weighted, describe the Australian population (excluding those not living in households). The datasets ( PSPP/

SPSS SPSS Statistics is a statistical software suite developed by IBM for data management, advanced analytics, multivariate analysis, business intelligence, and criminal investigation. Long produced by SPSS Inc., it was acquired by IBM in 2009. C ...

, SAS and

Stata Stata (, , alternatively , occasionally stylized as STATA) is a general-purpose statistical software package developed by StataCorp for data manipulation, visualization, statistics, and automated reporting. It is used by researchers in many fie ...

files) are available for legitimate research purposes and application can be made from the HILDA website. The data are confidentialised by suppression of geographic and other identifying information. A bibliography of published research, the survey

methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for br ...

, the questionnaires and a user manual are available from the HILDA website. HILDA data are integrated into the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF) which contains population panel data from Australia, Canada, Germany, Great Britain, Korea, Switzerland, Russia and the United States.

External links

*
Cross National Equivalent File (CNEF)
(URL accessed 2016-01-28) {{Social surveys Economy of Australia Economic data Panel data Social research Household income Household surveys

See also

External links