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QUALITY DECLARATION – SUMMARY (B&I)

INSTITUTIONAL ENVIRONMENT

For information on the institutional environment of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), including the legislative obligations of the ABS, financing and governance arrangements, and mechanisms for scrutiny of ABS operations, please see ABS Institutional Environment.

RELEVANCE

The Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation survey provides data on people aged 18 years and over who are either not employed or work less than 35 hours. The Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation topic is designed to bring various aspects of factors which influence labour force participation into one data source for comparison. The survey provides information on the potential labour force and what is preventing these people finding or taking up (more) work. The related supplementary surveys of Persons not in the labour force, Australia (cat. no. 6220.0), Underemployed Workers, Australia (cat. no. 6265.0) and Job Search Experience, Australia (cat. no. 6222.0) offer more detailed information on the various populations.

Full details of the data items are available on the ABS website in an Excel spreadsheet, under the Downloads section (B&I and R&RI 2012–13 Data Items List).

TIMELINESS

The Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation survey is collected biennially, and was first conducted in 2004–05. The most recent Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation survey was conducted throughout Australia during the 2012-13 financial year. It was a component of the 2012-13 Multipurpose Household Survey (MPHS), collected as a supplement to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Labour Force Survey (LFS). Results from the survey are released approximately six months after the completion of enumeration in the publication Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation (cat. no. 6239.0).

ACCURACY

The number of completed interviews (after taking into account scope and coverage exclusions) for the Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation survey was 8,200. The response rate was approximately 78% after taking the exclusions into account. See the Explanatory Notes (paragraph 10) for more information.

Estimates from the survey are subject to sampling and non-sampling errors.

The MPHS was designed primarily to provide estimates at the Australia level. Broad estimates are available for states and territories, though users should exercise caution when using estimates at this level because of the presence of high sampling errors. RSEs for all estimates in the publication are available on the ABS website. As a guide, estimates and RSEs for Table 2 are presented in the Technical note.

COHERENCE

For the 2012–13 survey, the scope of the survey was changed to include employed people who were working less than 35 hours, in addition to those not employed. For previous surveys, only employed people who worked less than 16 hours were included in the survey.

From 2012-13, the survey now includes people living in very remote parts of Australia but excludes people living in Indigenous communities in very remote parts of Australia.

The 2012–13 survey included questions on incentives to join or increase participation in the labour force. Some enhancements were made to these questions since they were last included in the 2008–09 survey.

For the 2012–13 survey, the new items satisfaction with current hours worked and satisfaction with current work arrangements were included and have been shown in this publication. Data is also available for the other new items, preferred number of hours per week for the unemployed and long-term health conditions.

The related supplementary surveys of Persons not in the labour force, Australia (cat. no. 6220.0), Underemployed Workers, Australia (cat. no. 6265.0) and Job Search Experience, Australia (cat. no. 6222.0) offer more detailed information on the various populations. Data from these supplementary surveys are not directly comparable with data from Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation as there are differences in scope, collection methodology and sample design (including sample size). For example, the three supplementary surveys are conducted in a particular month each year, whereas Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation data are usually collected over the 12 months of a financial year (for 2004-05, the survey was conducted over 11 months). Information for the supplementary surveys is collected using the Any Responsible Adult methodology, whereas for the Barriers and Incentives topic, a randomly selected respondent is personally interviewed. For more information see chapters 21 and 22 of Labour Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 6102.0.55.001).

The 2012–13 survey has been weighted using the latest estimates of the population, based on quarterly Estimated Resident Population, as standard. While Labour Force survey benchmarks are revised every 5 years, to take into account the outcome of the 5-yearly rebasing of the Estimated Resident Population following the latest Census, the supplementary surveys and multi-purpose household surveys (from which the statistics in this publication are taken) are not. Small differences will therefore exist between the civilian population aged 15 years and over reflected in the Labour Force survey and other labour household surveys estimates, as well as over time (eg. between the 2010-11 and 2012-13 Barriers & Incentives to Labour Force Participation surveys).

INTERPRETABILITY

The Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation publication contains detailed Explanatory Notes, Technical Notes and a Glossary that provide information on the terminology, classifications and other technical aspects associated with these statistics.

Seasonally adjusted and trend estimates are not produced. The estimates are based on information collected over the financial year. However, seasonal weighting is not undertaken.

Further commentary is often available through articles and data published in other ABS products, including:

Australian Labour Market Statistics (cat. no. 6105.0).

Australian Social Trends (cat. no. 4102.0) - refer to the Article archive for past articles.

Labour Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 6102.0.55.001).

Year Book, Australia (cat. no. 1301.0) - refer to the 'Labour' chapter.

ACCESSIBILITY

In addition to the PDF publication, the tables and associated RSEs will be available in spreadsheet form on the website.

Data is available on request. Note that detailed data can be subject to high relative standard errors and, in some cases, may result in data being confidentialised.

For 2010–11, a microdata data file is available to via TableBuilder. This replaced the Confidentialised Unit Record File (CURF) that was created for 2008–09 MPHS and general MPHS CURFs before then.

For further information about these or related statistics, contact the National Information and referral centre on 1300 135 070 or Labour Market Statistics Section Section in Canberra on (02) 6252 7206, or by email to <labour.statistics@abs.gov.au>.