The Multi Purpose Household Survey (MPHS) was conducted in Australia from August 2004 to June 2005. Data were obtain from one randomly selected person aged 18 years or over in 13,337 private dwelling households across Australia (excluding sparsely settled areas). The 2004-05 MPHS collected data on three topics: Household use of information technology; Barriers and incentives to labour force participation and; Retirement and retirement intentions.

The household use of information technology topic collected data on personal and household access to computers and the Internet. Information on locations of use, the purpose and frequency of access to the Internet, technology used to access the Internet and the value of goods and services ordered using the Internet were also collected. The barriers and incentives to labour force participation topic collected data from persons aged 18 years or older who were either not employed or who worked very few hours (less than 16 hours per week in all jobs). The topic collected information on the potential labour force including current and previous job details, reasons for not wanting work or more work and reasons for not being available to start work or more work.

The retirement and retirement intentions topic collected data from persons aged 45 years or over who had previously worked for two weeks or more. The topic included information on factors which influenced decisions to retire, retirement intentions and sources of income at retirement.

A number of socio-demographic data items were also collected and will be included on the CURF including capital city/rest of state identifiers for the six states; state/territory identifiers, age, sex, marital status, birthplace and year of arrival in Australia; labour force details including occupation, industry and hours worked; educational qualifications, and details of weekly and annual income by fine level source of income for the randomly selected person, their partner and their household.

The Expanded CURF can be accessed via the ABS Remote Access Data Laboratory (RADL).

For more information, please refer to the Multi Purpose Household Survey 2004-05 CURF: Information Paper (cat. no. 4100.0).