ABS household surveys employ complex sample designs and weighting which require special methods for estimating the variance of survey statistics. Variance estimators for a simple random sample are not appropriate for this survey microdata.
A class of techniques called 'replication methods' provide a general process for estimating variance for the types of complex sample designs and weighting procedures employed in ABS household surveys. The ABS uses a method called the Group Jackknife Replication Method.
A basic idea behind the replication approach is to split the sample into G replicate groups. One replicate group is then dropped from the file and a new set of weights is produced for the remaining sample. This is repeated for all G replicate groups to provide G sets of replicate weights. For each set of replicate weights, the statistic of interest is recalculated and the variance of the full sample statistic is estimated using the variability among the replicate statistics. The statistics calculated from these replicates are called replicate estimates. Replicate weights provided on the microdata file enable variance of survey statistics, such as means and medians, to be calculated relatively simply (Further technical explanation can be found in Section 4 of Research Paper: Weighting and Standard Error Estimation for ABS Household Surveys (Methodology Advisory Committee).