Changes this issue
Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation
Previously, data from the Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation survey would also be included in this TableBulder product. Data items relating to this survey are not yet available, and will be released on 28 August 2020 to co-incide with the publication of Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation, Australia (cat. no. 6239.0).
Weighting and estimation
From this issue, the Retirement and Retirement Intentions survey (R&RI) was weighted to benchmarks that were based on a 12 month average of population estimates across the financial year reference period (July 2018 to June 2019). These benchmarks included populations categorised by geography of usual residence, sex and age, as well as employed, unemployed and not in the labour force populations. They were sourced from the results of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) as reported in the December 2019 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0).
Previously, population benchmarks were based on a single point in time instead of a 12 month average (December for the 2016-17 issue, and March for previous issues). Using a 12 month average removes the seasonality from the employed, unemployed and not in the labour force benchmarks and is more representative of the period of collection across the financial year.
Estimates from the LFS have been used as benchmarks for R&RI since the 2014-15 issue, to improve coherence between the two publications. Previously, they were used in tandem with independent benchmarks from Estimated Resident Population (ERP). LFS estimates are also benchmarked to ERP, and since 2015 have been revised and rebenchmarked on a quarterly basis to the latest population estimates. From this issue, R&RI benchmarks are based solely on LFS estimates, since they already include the latest information from ERP.
For more information, refer to the explanatory notes of Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
Retirement definition
The definition of retirement no longer requires people to have previously worked in a job for at least 2 weeks. The definition now only requires people to have previously worked in a job for any duration, including jobs that lasted for less than 2 weeks.
This change was done to remain consistent with changes that were made to the LFS questionnaire in July 2014 regarding duration of job search (aka duration of unemployment). The question regarding duration since last worked also previously required people to only refer to jobs that were worked for at least 2 weeks, but since July 2014 the '2 weeks' requirement was removed. Since the determination of retirement status references this question from the LFS questionnaire, the equivalent question in the R&RI questionnaire was updated to remain consistent.
For more details, refer to the updated Retirement and Retirement Intentions questionnaire provided in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
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