RDP 2005-03: Property Owners in Australia: A Snapshot Appendix A: Data and Variable Definitions

Data description

This paper uses data from Wave 2 (Release 2.0, unconfidentialised) of the Department of Family and Community Services' Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. It provides unit record data for 7,245 households and 13,041 individuals.

All net wealth and income data used in this paper are based on actual responses, and imputed data where some response components were missing, as provided by the Melbourne Institute.

Variable definitions

Mnemonics in brackets refer to the HILDA codes.

Age: of the household reference person in years;^[12] linear and quadratic terms. (BHGAGE)

Business wealth: net equity held in a business (in $'000s); linear and quadratic terms. (BHWBEIP–BHWBEIN)

Casual worker: a dummy variable which takes the value 1 if the household reference person is employed on a casual basis and 0 otherwise. (BJBCASAB)

Ever unemployed: a dummy variable which takes the value 1 if the household reference person has ever been unemployed and 0 otherwise. (BEHTUJ)

Income: household income (in $'000s); linear and quadratic terms. (BHIFEFP–BHIFEFN)

Labour force status: dummy variables for the household reference person's employment status being part-time employee, unemployed, not in the labour force but not retired, retired, or self-employed. The reference category varies between models, as insignificant categories were excluded. (BESDTL and BESEMPST)

Marital status: dummy variables for the marital status of the household reference person being married, separated, divorced, de facto, widowed, or never married and not de facto (referred to as ‘single’). The reference category varies between models, as insignificant categories were excluded.^[13] (BMRCURR)

Net wealth: household net wealth, less housing and business equity,^[14] (in $'000s); linear and quadratic terms. (BHWNWIP−BHWNWIN+BHWTPEIP−BHWTPEIN+BHWBEIP−BHWBEIN)

Number of adults: number of persons aged 15 years or over in the household. (BHHADULT)

Number of children: number of children aged 14 years or under in the household. (BHH0 4+BHH5 9+BHH10 14)

Own business: a dummy variable which takes the value 1 if a household member owns business assets (with a positive value) and 0 otherwise. (BHWBUSVI)

Own home: a dummy variable that takes the value 1 if the household owns their own home or is in a rent-buy arrangement and 0 if they rent it or have life tenure. (BHSTENR)

Post-secondary educated: a dummy variable which takes the value 1 if the household reference person has completed a post-secondary school qualification and 0 otherwise. (BEDHIGH)

Previous owner: a dummy variable that takes the value 1 if a household which currently owns their own home had previously owned another home and 0 otherwise.^[15] (BHSPOWN)

Region: dummy variables for different states/territories of residence and for the major statistical regions of the capital cities for the five largest states. The reference category is the Sydney statistical region. (BHHMSR)

Time employed: total time spent employed by the household reference person (in years); linear and quadratic terms.^[16] (BEHTJB)

Time unemployed: total time spent unemployed by the household reference person (in years).^[17] (BEHTUJ)

Total property value: self-reported value of total property assets (in $'000s). This is set to 0 if the household does not own any property. (BHWTPVI)

Value of own home: self-reported value of home (in $'000s). This is set to 0 if the household is renting. (BHWHMVAI)

Figures 1 to 3 were created using data weighted by the household population weights (BHHWTH). However, the estimation of the econometric models and Figures 4 to 7 used unweighted data, since it is not clear whether the weights, which are derived to ensure representativeness for the total population in a number of demographic dimensions, would be appropriate for our specific econometric model.

Footnotes

The household reference person was chosen from the household members as the person with the highest income, highest salary, labour force status, age and respondent number, in that order. [12]

Alternatively, the variable indicating household type (couples with and without children, single parent, or lone person) could be used (BHHRIH). However, it is highly collinear with the variable on marital status in combination with the number of children in the household. [13]

See Footnote 4 for justification for this treatment. [14]

One ‘refused/not stated’ case was assigned the value 1. [15]

Of the 37 responses that were recoded as zero, 35 were ‘not asked’, 1 ‘don't know’ and 1 ‘implausible value’. [16]

Of the 74 responses that were recoded as zero, 71 were ‘not asked’, 1 ‘don't know’, 1 ‘refused/not stated’ and 1 ‘implausible value’. [17]