CHANGES IN EARLIER SURVEYS

The SIH cycles from 1994-95 to 2002-03 are comparable. These files were reprocessed in 2003 to apply consistent demographic benchmarks to all years, and to incorporate the latest demographic estimates in the benchmarks. Changes over this period are generally minor and are summarised below:

• the sample size was fairly constant at about 7,000 households from 1994-95 to 2000-01, but increased to 10,211 in 2002-03
• an extra benchmark was used in the weighting process in 1999-2000 and 2000-01 to compensate for an apparent fall in the coverage of government benefit payments in those years
• any changes to government pensions and allowances have been incorporated
• the 2nd edition of the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations, Second Edition (ASCO) (cat. no. 1220.0) was introduced from 1996-97 for coding of occupation.

In addition, the item nature of occupancy was replaced by tenure type from 1995-96. Prior to 1995-96 owner occupiers were classified as either owners or purchasers. A purchaser had a mortgage or loan secured against the dwelling, and the loan was used to purchase or build the dwelling. An owner had no loan secured against the dwelling for the purpose of building or purchasing. From 1995-96, owner occupiers are classified as owners without a mortgage and owners with a mortgage. This change to the classification was made to reflect the increasing diversity in financial instruments, in particular the increasing use of loans secured against dwellings being used for non-housing purposes. Such secured loans have implications for the security of tenure and a household with such a loan is classified as an owner with a mortgage in the new classification.

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