The Survey of Income and Housing

• Published date: 01 June 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.12265
• Author: Matthew Taylor
• Date: 01 June 2018

Data Survey

The Survey of Income and Housing

Matthew Taylor*

Abstract

This data survey presents an introduction to the

Survey of Income and Housing (SIH), a cross-

sectional household survey of individuals

living in Australian private dwellings starting

in 1969. This article provides an overview of

the SIH and a description of the content of the

most recent edition collected over the course of

the 2015–16 f‌inancial year. The overview

compares and contrasts the SIH to its

longitudinal cousin the Household, Income

and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA)

survey, outlining strengths and limits of both

data sources depending on the type of research

question.

1. Introduction

Household income surveys have made an

incalculable contribution to our understanding

of the dynamics and distribution of household

and personal incomes. Most economists will be

familiar with the longitudinal Household,

Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia

(HILDA) survey, designed and managed by the

Melbourne Institute of Applied Social and

Economic Research, which began in 2001.

Some, however, may not be aware of the long-

running cross-sectional survey designed and

collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics

(ABS): the Survey of Income and Housing

(SIH).

The SIH, or Income Distribution Survey as it

was called when f‌irst collected in 1969, was

conducted every three to four years from 1969

to 1990. Since 2003–04 the SIH has been

conducted biennially (ABS 2017f).

1

Like HILDA, the SIH collects data on

demographics, housing, labour force character-

istics, education, income and assets. While the

specif‌ics of the scope of the SIH have changed

slightly over the years, it can be said to cover

the residents of private dwellings in both urban

and rural areas of Australia. According to the

ABS ‘The principal objective is to facilitate the

analysis and monitoring of the social and

economic welfare of Australian residents in

private dwellings’(ABS 2017g).

The SIH should be of interest to economists

for a number of reasons. First, SIH data forms

the basis of two important ABS publications

upon which many economists rely:

Household Income and Wealth, Catalogue

No. 6523.0 (ABS 2017c); and

* ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods,

Australian National University, Australian Capital Terri-

tory 0200 Australia; email <matthew.taylor@anu.edu.

au>. The author would like to thank Dean Adams and

Renee Allwright at the ABS. This article does not ref‌lect

the views of the ABS and all errors and omissions are mine.

The author would like to thank John Haisken-DeNew for

helpful comments on an earlier draft. This paper uses unit

record data from the Household, Income and Labour

Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The HILDA

Project was initiated and is funded by the Australian

Government Department of Social Services (DSS) and is

managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic

and Social Research (Melbourne Institute). The f‌indings

and views reported in this paper, however, are those of the

author and should not be attributed to either DSS or the

Melbourne Institute.

The Australian Economic Review, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 276–85

°

C2018 The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research

Published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd