Finding Your Way Around the HILDA Survey Data

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Nicole Watson
• Date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.12437

The Australian Economic Review, vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 554–564 DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.12437

For the Student

Finding Your Way Around the HILDA Survey Data

Nicole Watson*

Abstract

The Household, Income and Labour

Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey data

is a valuable resource for researchers and

policy makers. The HILDA Survey is a

nationally representative household panel

study with 20 waves of data collected between

2001 and 2020. This article helps researchers

new to the HILDA Survey gain an under-

standing of the survey, the data and its

documentation.

1. Introduction

Your supervisor has said ‘HILDA would be

good for your next project’. But what is

HILDA? How do you access it? And when

you get it, how do you navigate your way

around the 80 plus different data files and over

100,000 variables to find what you are

looking for?

This article aims to provide you with an

overview of the HILDA Survey, the data and

the documentation. It covers the sample

design, following rules, fieldwork, survey

content, response rates, data sets and conven-

tions, using the documentation, identifying

key variables and where to find program codes

to get you started.

2. Overview of the HILDA Survey

2.1 Sample Design and Following Rules

The HILDA Survey is a nationally representa-

tive household panel study that began in 2001

with interviews conducted on an annual basis

since then. It is funded by the Australian

Government through the Department of Social

Services, but the responsibility for the design,

administration and preparation of data for

release rests with the Melbourne Institute:

Applied Economic and Social Research at the

University of Melbourne. Roy Morgan has

undertaken the fieldwork since Wave 9 (the

fieldwork for Waves 1–8 was undertaken by

Nielsen).

The Wave 1 sample had a multi‐stage

clustered stratified design with 7,682 responding

* Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic and Social

Research, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010,

Australia; email <n.watson@unimelb.edu.au>.

© 2021 The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research,

Faculty of Business and Economics

Published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd