Research

• Australian Social Policy
• Longitudinal Data Initiatives
• Occasional Paper Series
• Social Policy Research Paper Series
• Statistical Paper Series
• FaHCSIA Research News
• Research FaCS Sheet Series
• Former DSS Publications

The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey

• Introduction
• Objectives
• Content
• Parties involved
• Timeline
• More details on the survey
• Getting access to HILDA data

---

Introduction

The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey was announced in the 1999-2000 Budget by the Australian Government. Further funding was provided in the 2003-04 and 2004-05 Budgets. The survey now has funding for eight annual waves (or rounds) of data collection. The first collection of data occurred in 2001.

Objectives

The primary objective of the HILDA Survey is to support research questions falling within three broad areas:

1. income dynamics - with a particular focus on how households respond to policy changes aimed at improving financial incentives, and interactions between changes in family status and poverty


2. labour market dynamics - with a focus on low-to-middle income households, female participation, and work to retirement transitions and


3. family dynamics - focusing on family formation, well-being and separation, along with post-separation arrangements for children and links between income support and family formation and breakdown.

Content

The range of topics covered in HILDA extends well beyond this to include such things as life satisfaction, health outcomes, neighbourhood characteristics, time usage and work-family balance.

A feature of the HILDA survey is that modules on specific topics can be included in each wave. Examples so far include:

• Wave 2 - wealth holdings of individuals and households
• Wave 3 - retirement intentions and retirement planning of people aged 45 years and over
• Wave 4 - young people's educational and job expectations, the impact of disabilities on work and study, and take up of private health insurance, and
• Wave 5 - fertility

Parties involved

The HILDA Survey is funded and managed on behalf of the Australian Government by the Longitudinal Surveys Section, Strategic Policy Branch, the former Department of Family and Community Services.

The design, development and conduct of waves 1-8 of the HILDA survey has been contracted to a research consortium led by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne. The other consortium members are the Australian Council for Educational Research and the Australian Institute of Family Studies. The principal investigator for the survey is Professor Mark Wooden from the Melbourne Institute. The fieldwork for waves 1-8 has been sub-contracted to ACNielsen.

Timeline

Wave 1 data was collected between August and December 2001, and released in October 2002. Wave 2 data was collected between August 2002 and March 2003 and released in January 2004. Subsequent waves follow this pattern.

More details on the survey

In depth information about the HILDA survey is available from the dedicated website: http://www.melbourneinstitute.com/hilda. This information includes:

• HILDA Annual Reports
• survey instruments
• discussion and technical papers on survey design, data quality, weighting and imputation
• details of the HILDA Survey Research Conference 2005 and
• a comprehensive bibliography of research papers that use HILDA data.

There are also contact details and an email discussion/information group (HILDA-L) which you can join.

Getting access to HILDA data

The HILDA data is available to approved researchers. Researchers applying for the data need to fill in the Order form and Deed of Licence covering the use of the data, which are available from the HILDA website.