Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia methodology

Labour statistics are some of Australia’s most important economic and social statistics. Put simply, they provide information about people and their participation in the labour market, their success in finding employment, their earnings and other benefits, their type of work, their working hours and conditions.

Given the importance of high quality information on the Australian labour market, the ABS produces a broad range of labour statistics, drawn from a wide range of different sources. Some of these sources are very well known, such as the monthly Labour Force Survey, but others are less well known – particularly new collections like the annual Jobs in Australia and the quarterly Labour Account.

A simple way of visualising this is to consider that ABS labour statistics are drawn from four key “pillars” of data, each of which is a bit different, but which provide complementary insights into the labour market.

Each of these pillars – the two traditional sources of household and business surveys, and the two more recent pillars of administrative data based statistics and Labour Account - provides important and unique insights to enable Australians to better understand their labour market.
 

A household survey approaches individual households to complete questions about their individual, family or household circumstances.

The key household survey that provides vital information about Australia’s labour market is the Labour Force Survey, and its related supplementary surveys.

Business surveys collect a broad range of information from businesses, including their performance, financial position or about jobs and employees.

Key business surveys with a labour market focus include Job Vacancies, Employee Earnings and Hours, Average Weekly Earnings and the Wage Price Index.

Administrative data refers to information maintained by governments and other entities that is made available to the ABS for statistical purposes. It includes data used for registrations, transactions and record keeping, usually during the delivery of a service.

The ABS publishes employment information from the Linked Employer Employee Dataset (LEED), using Australian Tax Office (ATO) information and ABS data. As a result, the LEED includes more than 100 million tax records over six consecutive years between 2011-12 and 2016-17, and provides information for over 2,200 different regions based on a person’s usual residence.

The ABS also publishes Weekly Payroll Jobs and Wages data derived from Single Touch Payroll (STP), which is provided by the ATO from businesses with STP-enabled payroll or accounting software. STP data includes both business and job level tax information and superannuation information. The data are combined with other administrative data from the Australian taxation system and provides indicative information on employees, including changes in paid employee jobs, changes in total wages paid, and changes in average weekly wages per job.

The Labour Account brings together data from separate administrative, business, and household sources, adjusting and confronting the various sources until a coherent picture of the labour market is established. It provides data on the number of employed persons, the number of jobs, hours worked and income earned for each industry. It provides the best labour market estimates for the 19 industry divisions each quarter and 86 industries annually.

Often there is only a single statistical data source on the ABS website that will include the information that you are after. However, for many labour market topics it is often the case that the ABS produces multiple statistics, each drawn from a different data source to enable different types of analysis. They provide important, complementary economic and social insights into the labour market, which is large, complex and dynamic.

It is therefore important to be guided by what you are looking to understand about the labour market. Is it to understand a topic where:

• demographic characteristics are important or it may related to an activity outside of employment? Household surveys are often useful for this.
• specific employer or payroll information is important? Business surveys are often useful for this.
• detailed sub-population or geographic information is important? This is usually best sourced from administrative data, or the five-yearly Census.
• a comprehensive ‘best estimate’ of key labour market indicators (based on reconciled information from all of the available data sources) is important? The Labour Account Is designed to provide this.
   

For example, in seeking to understand how many people are employed in jobs in Australia, you could use statistics from:

• Monthly Labour Force – which provides a timely indicator on changes in employment, unemployment and underemployment, including analysis by personal characteristics such as sex, age, occupation and employment status.
• The quarterly Labour Account – which is the best source of headline information on employment by industry. It provides an estimate of the number of jobs, hours worked, and associated labour income.
• The annual Jobs in Australia – which provides granular information on all the job relationship for more than 2,200 different regions across Australia. This rich dataset is based on more than 100 million individual records which allow for micro-data analysis of the Australian labour market.
   

Another common example is seeking to understand changes in wages over time, where you could use statistics from:

• Quarterly Wage Price Index - which measures changes in the price of labour in the Australian labour market. In a similar manner to the CPI, the WPI follows price changes in a fixed "basket" of jobs and is therefore not affected by changes in quality and quantity of work..
• The twice yearly Average Weekly Earnings - which provides data on average wages by industry, which provides insights into compositional changes in earnings over time.
• The two yearly Employee Earnings and Hours - which provides detailed data on methods of setting pay, hours paid for and detailed distributional earnings information.
• The annual Characteristics of Employment – which provides earnings by detailed socio-demographic and other characteristics.
• The quarterly Compensation of Employees measure in the National Accounts and quarterly measure of labour income in the Labour Account – which provide aggregate earnings measures.
   

Below is a list of some of the key labour statistics collections, organised into the pillars. In addition to improving the visibility of all of the available labour statistics, the ABS is also exploring how to better organise labour market information around themes and topics. This is being actively explored as part of the design of its new website, which will be launched in June 2020.

Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0) - Monthly

Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - Electronic Delivery (cat. no. 6291.0.55.001) – Monthly

Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, Quarterly (cat. no. 6291.0.55.003)

Characteristics of Employment, Australia (cat. no. 6333.0) - Annually

Participation, Job Search and Mobility, Australia (cat. no. 6226.0) – Annually

Education and Work, Australia (cat. no. 6227.0) - Annually

Characteristics of Recent Migrants, Australia (cat. no. 6250.0) – 4 yearly

Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation, Australia (cat. no. 6239.0) – 2 yearly

Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0) – 2 yearly

Microdata: Longitudinal Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6602.0) – irregular

Job Vacancies, Australia (cat. no. 6354.0) - Quarterly

Industrial Disputes, Australia (cat. no. 6321.0.55.001) - Quarterly

Average Weekly Earnings (cat. no. 6302.0) – 6 monthly

Employee Earnings and Hours, Australia (cat. no. 6306.0) – 2 yearly

Wage Price Index, Australia (cat. no. 6345.0) - Quarterly

Employment and Earnings, Public Sector, Australia (cat. no. 6248.0.55.002) - Annually

Australian Industry (cat. no. 8155.0) - Annually

Labour Costs, Australia (cat. no. 6348.0) – 5 yearly

Jobs in Australia (cat. no. 6160.0) - Annually

Personal Income in Australia (formerly Estimates of Personal income for Small Areas) (cat. no. 6524.0.55.002) - Annually

Weekly Payroll Jobs and Wages in Australia (cat. no. 6160.0.55.001) - Weekly

Labour Account Australia (cat. no. 6150.0.55.003) - Quarterly

The ABS continues to strengthen the suite of labour market statistics, to ensure that Australia can effectively understand how its labour market, economy and society are changing over time and make informed decisions.

People who, during the reference week:

• worked for one hour or more for pay, profit, commission or payment in kind in a job or business, or on a farm (comprising employees, employers and own account workers); or
• worked for one hour or more without pay in a family business or on a farm (i.e. contributing family workers); or
• were employees who had a job but were not at work and were:
   
  • away from work for less than four weeks up to the end of the reference week; or
  • away from work for more than four weeks up to the end of the reference week and received pay for some or all of the four week period to the end of the reference week; or
  • away from work as a standard work or shift arrangement; or
  • on strike or locked out; or
  • on workers' compensation and expected to return to their job; or
     
• were employers or own account workers who had a job, business or farm, but were not at work.
   

People who work for a public or private employer and receive remuneration in wages, salary, commission, tips, piece rates, or payment in kind.

People who operate their own incorporated enterprises can also be classified as employees, but are categorised in a separate category, see Owner managers of incorporated enterprises (OMIEs) and Status in employment

Employees who were entitled to either paid sick leave or paid holiday leave (or both).

Employees who were not entitled to, or did not know whether they were entitled to, paid sick and paid holiday leave.

Employed people who usually work 35 hours or more a week in all jobs.

Funded entirely from superannuation or any other income source, excluding any form of a government pension and/or allowance.

Income support payments from government to people under social security and related government programs. Included are pensions and allowances received by aged, disabled, unemployed and sick people, families and children, veterans and their survivors, and study allowances for students. Payments made by overseas governments as well as the Australian government are included.

An industry relates to a group of businesses or organisations that perform similar sets of activities in terms of the production of goods and services. In this publication, industry is classified according to the Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), 2006 (Revision 2.0) (cat. no. 1292.0)

People who indicated that they intended to give up all labour force activity: working or looking for work.

The civilian population can be split into two mutually exclusive groups: the labour force (employed and unemployed people) and not in the labour force.

Refers to the last job worked within the last 20 years.

The job in which most hours were usually worked.

People who are either unemployed or not in the labour force.

People aged 45 years and over who have, at some time, worked and were not retired from the labour force. That is, either employed, unemployed or not in the labour force and intend to continue working or look for, or take up, work in the future.

An occupation relates to a collection of jobs that are sufficiently similar in their title and tasks, skill level and skill specialisation which are grouped together for the purposes of classification. In this publication, occupation is classified according to ANZSCO – Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations, 2013, Version 1.2 (cat. no. 1220.0).

People who work in their own incorporated enterprise, that is, a business entity which is registered as a separate legal entity to its members or owners (may also be known as a limited liability company).

An owner manager of an incorporated enterprise may or may not hire one or more employees in addition to themselves and/or other owners of that business. See Status in employment for more information.

People who operate their own unincorporated enterprise or engage independently in a profession or trade.An owner manager of an unincorporated enterprise may or may not hire one or more employees in addition to themselves and/or other owners of that business. See Status in employment for more information.

Funded by government pension and/or allowance and at least one other income source.

Employed people who usually work less than 35 hours a week (in all jobs).

People who were classified as being in the labour force, that is, either employed or unemployed.

People who were not classified as employed or unemployed.

Includes hospital and/or extras cover only. People who reported ambulance cover only, or other health arrangements (eg Department of Veteran Affairs) are not considered to have private health insurance.

The relationship of people who live in the same household.

People who had previously worked and had retired from work or looking for work, and did not intend to look for, or take up, work in the future.

Status in employment is determined by an employed person's position in relation to their job, and is usually in respect of a person's main job if they hold more than one job.

Employed people are classified according to the reported relationship between the person and the enterprise for which they work, together with the legal status of the enterprise where this can be established. The groups include:

• Employees with leave entitlements
• Employees without leave entitlements
• Owner manager of incorporated enterprise (OMIEs) with employees;
• Owner manager of incorporated enterprise (OMIEs) without employees;
• Owner manager of unincorporated enterprise (OMUEs) with employees;
• Owner manager of unincorporated enterprise (OMUEs) without employees; and
• Contributing family workers.
   

Any fund, association or organisation set up for the purpose of providing financial cover for members when they retire from work. For this survey, information about superannuation scheme membership was collected if the respondent indicated that contributions had been made to a scheme. Contributions could either have been made by the respondent, the respondent's partner or the respondent's employer.

People who were not employed during the reference week, and:

• had actively looked for full-time or part-time work at any time in the four weeks up to the end of the reference week and;
• were available for work in the reference week; or
• were waiting to start a new job within four weeks from the end of the reference week and could have started in the reference week if the job had been available then.
   

The number of hours usually worked in a week in all jobs.

In order to provide a high degree of consistency and comparability over time, changes to survey methods, concepts, data item definitions, and frequency of collection are made as infrequently as possible. Changes affecting the LFS, which may also affect this survey, are outlined in Labour Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods (cat. no. 6102.0.55.001). Changes have included:

2018-19

• Estimates were benchmarked to a 12 month average of population estimates from the Labour Force Survey (as at December 2019). Estimates from previous surveys were also re-benchmarked using 12 month averages from the same LFS population series (as at December 2019) to improve coherence and consistency in the timeseries. The revised timeseries is available in Table 2 of this publications Data downloads section.
• The format of Table 2 has been modified to accommodate extending the series back to the November 1997 survey (which has also been rebenchmarked).
• The definition of retirement no longer requires people to have previously worked in a job for at least 2 weeks. The definition now only requires people to have previously worked in a job for any duration, including jobs that lasted for less than 2 weeks. This change was done to remain consistent with changes that were made to the LFS questionnaire in July 2014 regarding duration of job search.
   

2016-17

• Published in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
• The reference period for benchmarks changed from March to December, which resulted in a minor impact on the comparison of level estimates between 2014-15 and 2016-17. This impact has since been removed in 2018-19, when both surveys were rebenchmarked to a 12 month average of the reference period instead of a single point in time.
• Enhancements were made to the previous job module, and new questions added on whether business owners have employees, and on housing tenure.
• Data now also released in TableBuilder.
   

2014-15

• Published in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
• Questions on housing tenure, previous full-time job details and main source of current personal income were not collected.
• Addition of further age ranges ('65-69', '70-74', '75-79' and '80 and over') for questions on transitioning to retirement.
• To improve coherence with LFS estimates, survey benchmarking changed to include employed, unemployed and not in the labour force populations from the LFS alongside independent total population estimates from the Estimated Resident Population (ERP). Previously, benchmarks were based only on ERP. The reference period for the benchmarks were based on a single point in time (March 2015)
   

2012-13

• Published in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
• New content added on satisfaction with current hours and current work arrangements, self-funded retirement, and transition to retirement plans.
• Additional content included for 2012-13 on self-assessed health status, private health insurance and housing tenure.
• Microdata not released.
   

2010-11

• Published in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
• Questions on intentions for a healthy/active retirement, housing tenure, private health insurance, and self-assessed health not included.
   

2008-09

• Published in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
• In cases where people could not report an exact age they 'intend to permanently give up work', they were given the option of responding with an age range. These range responses were included in 'average age intends to retire' by substituting the low-point of the range into the calculation.
• New content added, including transition to retirement plans, sources of funds for meeting living costs, intentions for a healthy/active retirement, housing tenure, and self-assessed health.
• Additional content included for 2008-09 on self-assessed health status, private health insurance and housing tenure.
• Inclusion of 'all/main sources of funds for meeting living costs' data items.
   

April-July 2007

• Superannuation and Retirement data published in Employment Arrangements, Retirement and Superannuation, Australia (cat. no. 6361.0).
• Some retirement data only available for people who had retired in the last 20 years.
   

2006-07

• Published in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
• Collected from the Multi-Purpose Household survey (MPHS) for the full financial year.
• Age intends to retire ‘don’t know’ category replaced with 'don't know age will retire' and 'don't know whether will retire'. People who don't know age will retire were included with the 'intends to retire' population, whereas people who reported 'did not know whether will retire' were excluded from this population. This change had the effect of slightly decreasing the number of people who intend to retire.
• An additional category of 'partner's income' was included in the following data items: 'all/main source of income at retirement', and 'all/main expected source of income at retirement' (in 2004-05 this was included in the 'other' or 'no income' category).
   

2004-05

• Published in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
• Collected from the Multi-Purpose Household survey (MPHS) for August 2004 to June 2005.
• Retirement data expanded to include retirement from all kinds of work (full-time and part-time).
   

April-June 2000

• Superannuation data published in Employment Arrangements and Superannuation, Australia (cat. no. 6361.0).
• Some limited retirement data for people aged under 70 years available.
   

November 1997

• Published in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
• Collected from 6/8th of the Labour Force Survey.
• Retirement data expanded to include retirement from part-time work (excluding any part-time work of less than 10 hours per week).
   

November 1995

• Superannuation data collected in Superannuation, Australia (cat. no. 6319.0).
• Some limited retirement data for people aged under 75 years available.
   

November 1994

• Published in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
• Collected from 7/8th of the Labour Force Survey, previously collected from the whole sample.
• Includes people permanently unable to work. These people could be classed as retired if they had previously worked full-time at some point (before becoming permanently unable to work).
   

November 1993

• Superannuation data published in Superannuation, Australia (cat. no. 6319.0).
• No retirement data available.
   

October 1992

• Published in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
   

November 1991

• Superannuation data published in Superannuation, Australia (cat. no. 6319.0).
• No retirement data available.
   

November 1989

• Published in Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
   

November 1988

• Superannuation data published in Superannuation, Australia (cat. no. 6319.0).
• No retirement data available.
   

November 1986 

• Published as Retirement and Retirement Intentions, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
• Housing arrangements data was expanded to include all people in sample. Previously, this information was collected once per household.
   

September 1984 

• Retirement intentions data published in Persons Who Intended to Retire from Full-time Work, Australia (cat. no. 6258.0).
• Detailed Retirement data not available.
   

September 1983

• Published as Persons Retired from Full-time Work, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0)
• Scope expanded to people aged 45 years and over.
• Retirement data expanded to include people who had retired more than 20 years ago.
• Retirement intentions data not collected.
   

September-November 1982

• Superannuation data published in Superannuation, Australia (cat. no. 6319.0).
• No retirement data available.
   

May 1980

• First retirement survey, published as Persons Aged 50-69 Years Ceasing Full-Time Work, Australia (cat. no. 6238.0).
• Retirement measured as retirement from full-time work.
• Scope originally limited to people aged 50 to 69 years.
• Age at retirement and other data items only asked when people had retired in the last 20 years.
• Excluded people permanently unable to work.
   

Feb 1974

• First superannuation survey, published as Survey of Superannuation (cat. no. 6319.0).
• No retirement data available.