Reflecting on 21 Years of the HILDA Survey

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Ann Evans
• Date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.12448

The Australian Economic Review, vol. 54, no. 4, pp. 462–468 DOI: 10.1111/1467-8462.12448

What the HILDA Survey Tells Us After 21 Years

Reflecting on 21 Years of the HILDA Survey

Ann Evans*

1. The Birth of an Australian Household

Panel Survey

In 2022, the Household, Income and Labour

Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey will

field its 21st annual wave of data collection; a

milestone that cannot pass without celebra-

tion. This issue of the Australian Economic

Review celebrates the contribution to in-

formed public discourse, policy analysis and

development and understanding of life in

Australia that the HILDA Survey has enabled.

In 1999, the then Minister for Family and

Community Services (FaCS) announced a major

review of welfare policies (Yeend 2000). During

this time, there was also a growing enthusiasm

for the concept of ‘evidence‐based policy’

(Marston and Watts 2003; Palangkaraya,

Webster and Cherastidtham 2012), one of the

critical components of which was high‐quality

data to inform and evaluate policy decisions.

While cross‐sectional data available at the time

could give a snapshot of society, what was

needed was longitudinal data that would track

people and households over time and capture the

dynamics, durations and pathways of their lives

(Bynner and Joshi 2007). Other countries, such

as Germany, the United Kingdom and the

United States, had large‐scale long‐running

longitudinal household panel surveys that were

ideal for such purposes, but it was apparent that

Australia lacked anything comparable or fitfor

purpose (Watson and Wooden 2012).

Against this background, the 1999–2000

Budget provided funding to FaCS to establish

Australia's first nationally representative long-

itudinal household panel survey. The funding

covered the running of the survey for an initial

period of 3 years with the aim that it would

collect data to inform and support policy

development and analysis in three inter‐

related areas of income dynamics, labour

market dynamics and family dynamics. The

Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and

Social Research at the University of

Melbourne won the public tender to admin-

ister the survey and in 2001, 139 trained

interviewers were sent out across Australia to

interview respondents for the inaugural wave

of the HILDA Survey.

In 2001, those 139 interviewers success-

fully interviewed 13,969 people aged 15 and

over living across 7,682 households. They

came to those households armed with three

different types of questionnaires. The first

questionnaire contained questions designed to

collect information about the household itself,

including basic demographic data about all the

residents. The second questionnaire was given

to household members aged 15 and over and

asked for details about their family back-

ground, past and current education and

employment, detailed income and financial

information, as well as childbearing and

relationship histories. The third questionnaire

was a self‐completion questionnaire (SCQ)

left with respondents to complete themselves.

This questionnaire comprised mainly attitu-

dinal questions on topics such as gender role

attitudes and values, physical and mental

health, financial stress and work–family con-

flict. Every year after that those individuals

and households have been re‐interviewed,

* Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian

National University, ACT 2600, Australia; email <ann.

evans@anu.edu.au>. The author would like to acknowl-

edge the invaluable research support provided by Anna

Reimondos.

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

Faculty of Business and Economics

Published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd