Measuring income distribution - getting the numbers right
Leon Pietsch and Bob McColl
Australian Bureau of Statistics
Contact Email:   leon.pietschabs.gov.au

The release of the 2000-01 results from the ABS Survey of Income and Housing Costs (SIHC), and revisions to earlier survey results, have been delayed due primarily to concerns about the significant decline in the coverage of current year welfare transfers measured in the 1999-00 and 2000-01 SIHC cycles. Understanding the nature of the decline in welfare transfer coverage, and any impacts this might have on the measurement of income distribution, both in the latest SIHC cycles and for comparisons over time, is important to ensure that the survey results are meaningful.

SIHC measures of annual income transfers for the years prior to each SIHC cycle in 1994-95 to 1997-98 also showed very significant undercoverage of those transfers.

SIHC methodology for the published results for the years up to and including 1999-00 also resulted in an overstated but variable number of children when compared with population estimates. The implications of the overstatement for both overall analysis of income distribution and for analysis of particular household types also needed to be investigated.

The ABS has undertaken extensive investigations into the survey data and methods to ensure that the published statistics will be sufficiently robust and clearly explained to support informed analysis of household income distribution. This session describes the results of the investigation and the subsequent changes to the survey estimation systems. The insights into the data gained through the recent ABS analysis will guide future improvements in survey practices and estimation methods as well as help analysts in their interpretation of survey results.

The session also briefly outlines some developments in the joint SPRC-ABS project to produce data sets of household income microdata that provide comparability beyond the time period covered by the Survey of Income and Housing Costs.

This session is largely based on the material included in a feature article. published in the June 2003 issue of the ABS's Australian Economic Indicators, cat. no. 1350.0. The article was titled "Revised Household Income Distribution Statistics". It is also available on www.abs.gov.au. Choose Feature Articles, Population/People, and Personal and Household Finances.

Paper Download Information (if available):

Copyright © 2003 Social Policy Research Centre.