Income and Housing Costs and Amenities (Survey of)

NAME OF ORGANISATION
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

OVERVIEW
The Survey of Income and Housing Costs and Amenities collected level and source cash income for both current and previous financial year, with employment and educational details, demographic details, housing costs and housing amenities from each person over 15 in private households and special dwellings.

PURPOSE
The level of cash income is an indicator of economic well being. For government social security policy makers , researchers and social commentators information is required on the distribution of income over the whole population. They also need to know about demographic and other characteristics of the individuals or families as for example family size and composition are important factors in determining economic need. Differing levels of housing costs also affect needs.
For those interested in labour market analysis data on wages and salaries, hours of work, age, sex, educational qualifications etc are required.

SCOPE
The scope was persons over 15 in private households and special dwellings excluding institutions in Australia
MPS rules applied to scope except that members of the Australian Permanent Defence Forces living off base were in scope.

DATA DETAIL

Conceptual framework

Main outputs
Persons earned income (period), occupation, full time, part time educational qualifications labour force status age sex
Income units income from all sources (current usual), housing cost and tenure type
Households housing costs and amenities.

Classifications
The main classifications used in the IDS are Source of Income, Principal Source of Income, Country of Birth, Marital Status, Labour Force Status, Hours Worked, Full-time/Part-time status, Occupation, Industry, Dwelling Structure, Educational Qualification, Nature of housing occupancy, Household Composition, Type, Relationship in Household, Income Unit Type. IDS data item concepts and classifications largely conform with established standards, as documented in the Directory of Concepts and Standards for Social, Labour and Demographic Statistics. See the SSOS data item list

Other concepts (summary)
Income Unit - An income unit is one person or a group of related persons, within a household whose command over income is assumed to be shared. Income sharing is assumed to take place between partners in a couple (married and de facto) and between parents and their dependent children. An income unit may be a couple with or without dependent children, a single parent with dependent children or a single person.

Negative income from own business or rent was set to zero before total income was calculated.
Income of full-time students over 15 is not included in income unit income.
Women who changed marital status during the financial year were considered out on scope for period income even if they had earned income.

GEOGRAPHIC DETAIL
Australia
New South Wales
Victoria
Queensland
South Australia
Western Australia
Tasmania
Northern Territory
ACT
Capital City Statistical Division
Other (specify below)

Comments and/or Other Regions
Capital city/Rest of State data is collected for all States. NT and ACT data is only collected at the Territory level. Remote and sparsely settled areas are excluded. This has a significant impact on Northern Territory estimates. Northern Territory estimates are mainly representative of urban areas.

COLLECTION FREQUENCY
5 Yearly

Frequency comments
Survey has been superseded by the survey of income and housing costs

COLLECTION HISTORY
Previous Surveys were conducted in 1982 and 1986. This survey has been superseded by the continuous Survey of Income and Housing Costs which commenced in July 1994

DATA AVAILABILITY
Yes