Mark Wooden

• Professor at University of Melbourne

Using data from the 2022 round of the HILDA Survey, regression models are estimated where the outcomes are variables that influence or are correlated with personal well‐being, and the main independent variable distinguishes persons who identify as transgender or gender‐diverse (TGD) from persons whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at b...

Objective This study investigates the effects of working from home (WFH) on both work‐to‐family conflict (WTFC) and family‐to‐work conflict (FTWC) among parents, and whether family demands and the COVID‐19 pandemic moderate these effects. Background The COVID‐19 pandemic saw a marked increase in the incidence of WFH in many countries, which many a...

This article examines the impact of the growth in the incidence of working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic on workers’ job satisfaction. Using longitudinal data collected in 2019 and 2021 as part of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, fixed-effects models of job satisfaction are estimated. Changes in the sh...

This study examines changes in birth rates in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic and the extent to which such changes were influenced by lockdowns. We use natality data at State and small regional area levels spanning the period from 2011 to 2022. In our empirical approach, we first take advantage of a unique quasi-experimental setting that aro...

Lockdown was used worldwide to mitigate the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and was the cornerstone non-pharmaceutical intervention of zero-COVID strategies. Many previous impact evaluations of lockdowns are unreliable because lockdowns co-occurred with severe coronavirus disease related health and financial insecurities....

On average, temporary jobs are far less stable than permanent jobs. This higher instability could potentially lower workers’ incentives to relocate towards the workplace, thereby resulting in longer commutes. However, surprisingly few studies have investigated the link between temporary employment and commuting length. Building on the notion that i...

Many studies have reported evidence of negative associations between fixed-term contract employment and fertility. With few exceptions, these studies assume that employment status is exogenous and thus results are likely biased. Furthermore, previous research has mostly not considered whether the effects of employment status on fertility might vary...

This report presents brief statistical analyses of the first 20 waves of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, which were conducted between 2001 and 2020. An important theme of this year’s report is how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted life in Australia in 2020. The 2020 data provide an insight into how the first year...

Lockdown edicts during the COVID-19 pandemic have led to concerns about consequences for childbirth plans and decisions. Robust empirical research to either refute or confirm these concerns, however, is lacking. To evaluate the causal impact of lockdowns on fertility, we exploited a large sample of Australians (aged 18-45) from a nationally represe...

Longitudinal evidence on whether, and under what conditions, working from home is good or bad for family life is largely absent. Using 15 waves of data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, this study investigates the association between working from home and work–family conflict among parents. Fixed-effects structural...

Rationale Despite a growing body of work investigating the combined effects of maternal and paternal joblessness for children's outcomes, very little is known about the long-term effects of parental joblessness on children's health, and especially health during adulthood. Objective The primary objective of this study is to directly test whether ex...

Background Many studies have examined population mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic but have been unable to isolate the direct effect of lockdowns. The aim of this study was to examine changes in the mental health of Australians aged 15 years and older during the COVID-19 pandemic using a quasi-experimental design to disentangle the lockdow...

We examine whether the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the associated policy responses have aggravated gender inequality in the Australian labor market. Using quarterly data from the Australian Labour Force Survey between November 2019 and November 2021, we compare labor force outcomes before and during the outbreak. Our findings indicate t...

Lockdowns were used worldwide to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2. We demonstrate that the 112-day hard lockdown in Melbourne, Australia, the longest among OECD jurisdictions, exclusively penalized families with young children. To identify the causal impact of lockdown on human life, we interrogated nationally-representative longitudinal survey da...

Lockdowns were used worldwide to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2. We demonstrate that the 112-day hard lockdown in Melbourne, Australia, the longest among OECD jurisdictions, exclusively penalized families with young children. To identify the causal impact of lockdown, we interrogated nationally-representative longitudinal survey data and exploit...

Studies of intergenerational stratification and mobility have long called for investigation of the joint role of mothers and fathers in affecting labor market outcomes of children. However, long-term effects of parental joblessness—where no co-residing parent is employed at a given time—are not well understood. Using longitudinal data (covering 994...

This article provides a brief and selective review of research studies examining job characteristics and the changing nature of work that have used data from the HILDA Survey. It focuses on research into job satisfaction (and job quality more broadly), working time and forms of employment.

A substantial proportion of Australians report recurring pain and mental health problems, but their separate and joint contributions to sick leave use has not been examined. This study examines the interaction of pain and mental health problems with sick leave usage and the extent to which unobservable time-invariant factors contribute to these con...

Objective This article investigates whether weekend work is associated with higher levels of work–family conflict (WFC) among parents, and whether resources like schedule control or presence of a partner mitigate this effect. Background The 24/7 economy requires many workers to work on weekends. Nevertheless, research on the impact of weekend work...

This paper examines the extent to which solo self-employment serves as a vehicle for job creation. Using panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, a dynamic multinomial logit model of transitions between labour market states is estimated. The empirical strategy closely follows that used in a previous stu...

Background: While there is discussion of increasing rates of mental disorders, epidemiological research finds little evidence of change over time. This research generally compares cross-sectional surveys conducted at different times. Declining response rates to representative surveys may mask increases in mental disorders and psychological distress...

This report presents brief statistical analyses of the first 18 waves of the study, which were conducted between 2001 and 2018. The report should, of course, be viewed as containing only ‘selected findings’, providing only a cursory indication of the rich potential of the HILDA Survey data.

Objectives: This paper assessed the impact of working in casual employment, compared with permanent employment, on eight health attributes that make up the 36-Item Short Form (SF-36) Health Survey, separately by sex. The mental health impacts of casual jobs with irregular hours over which the worker reports limited control were also investigated....

This paper provides a brief summary of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, a nationally representative household panel survey. It describes the survey’s key design features, provides an overview of its content, and reports on response rates and sample sizes. It also highlights a few examples of research utilising...

Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, and after restricting attention to employees, we observe an increase over time in the non‐standard employment share, all of which is concentrated in the period since 2009. Further, we find clear evidence that employees in non‐standard forms of employment have exp...

Despite the relevance of parents’ economic participation for children’s future outcomes, few studies have considered the joint contribution of both parents’ joblessness in explaining children’s employment outcomes in the long run. Further, previous studies have used measures of parents’ employment status observed at a single point in time. In contr...

We develop and analyse comprehensive, multi‐item scales of the quality of Australian jobs, using the rich measures of job characteristics from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. Through exploratory methods and multidimensional item response theory modelling, we uncover four gender‐specific scales that describe the autono...

While it is often believed that temporary forms of employment, such as fixed-term contracts, casual work and temporary agency work, provide workers with more flexibility to balance work and private commitments, convincing empirical evidence on this issue is still scarce. This paper investigates the association between temporary employment and work-...

Background: Uncertainty remains whether associations for psychological distress and sickness absence (SA) observed between and within individuals differ, and whether age, gender and work-related factors moderate these associations. Methods: We analyzed SA records of 41,184 participants of the Finnish Public Sector study with repeated survey data...

It is widely accepted that temporary jobs tend to be associated with low pay which, in turn, will have negative consequences for household income. Evidence in support of such claims, however, is relatively thin. This study seeks to fill this void. In particular, it is both the first study to examine the consequences of temporary employment for work...

This article provides an overview of the measurement of, and trends in, the prevalence of non-standard employment in Australia. Using the most recent data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey (2001–2017), the share of non-standard employment in total employment is estimated to have been 54.9% in 2001. In the most recen...

Using nationally representative panel data from Australia and Germany, this article investigates the relationships between working-time regulation, long working hours, overemployment and mental health, as measured by the Mental Component Summary score from the 12-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12). Fixed effects and dynamic linear models are est...

This study examines the effect of parents’ unemployment on their children’s subsequent educational attainment. Its theoretical significance lies on its focus to test the mediating role of parents’ changing work ethics during spells of unemployment. Integrating multiple survey and administrative data sources, our estimates are based on a sample of D...

Does parental joblessness delay young adults’ school-to-work transitions? If so, can a university degree moderate this relationship? We examine these questions using a representative sample of young adults who lived with their parents prior to entering the labor market in Australia (N = 2152) and the U.S. (N = 811) during the period 2001–2015. Resu...

This study uses panel data for Australia to estimate the wage differential between workers in temporary jobs and workers in permanent jobs. It is the first study to use unconditional quantile regression methods in combination with fixed effects to examine how this gap varies over the entire wage distribution. While the wages of fixed‐term contract...

The debate over whether contingent (and typically more precarious) employment acts as a bridge to permanent employment, or as a trap, has tended to focus on transitions rather than longer-run pathways. This approach cannot accurately identify indirect pathways from contingent to permanent employment or € trap' pathways involving short spells in oth...

This chapter focuses on longitudinal surveys, the defining feature of which is the collection of repeated observations from the same units over time. Longitudinal surveys have the potential to provide rich data for analyzing the causes and consequences of change in peoples' lives. The chapter compares the reported retention rates from a range of di...

Prior research has found that opposite-sex marital and cohabiting relationships are associated with improvements in health. However, studies examining the health dynamics of same-sex relationships are sparser because few nationally representative longitudinal datasets collect information on adults’ sexual identity. Using newly available data on sex...

It is widely accepted that temporary jobs tend to be associated with low pay which, in turn, will have negative consequences for household income. Evidence in support of such claims, however, is surprisingly thin. This study seeks to fill this void. In particular, it is both the first study to examine the consequences of temporary employment for wo...

Panel data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey are used to examine the impact of involuntary job loss on the mental health of spouses and adolescent children. Estimates from fixed effects models show that the mental health of women (but not men) declines following a spouse’s job loss, but only if that job loss results...

In 2010 the Australian Government commissioned The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne to undertake “Journeys Home (JH): A Longitudinal Study of the Factors Affecting Housing Stability”. The broad aim of JH was to improve the understanding of, and policy responses to, the diverse social, econom...

Much of the economic cost of mental illness stems from workers’ reduced productivity. Using nationally representative panel data we analyze the links between mental health and two alternative workplace productivity measures – absenteeism and presenteeism (i.e., lower productivity while attending work) – explicitly allowing these relationships to be...

Using newly collected data on sexual identity from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey, this study examines the relationship between sexual identity and labour market outcomes. Our findings show that gay males are: (i) less likely to be continuously employed than their heterosexual counterparts, and (ii) face an annual ear...

Temporary and other forms of non-standard employment are an important feature of modern labour markets. Yet, relatively little is known about how much and under what circumstances such employment arrangements impact on long-term wage outcomes. Using longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey spannin...

We use longitudinal data describing couples in Australia from 2001-12 and Germany from 2002-12 to examine how demographic events affect mothers’ and fathers’ perceived time and financial stress. Consistent with the view of measures of stress as proxies for Lagrangean multipliers in models of household production, we show that births increase time s...

Does subjective well-being rise or fall with age or are most people, especially those in old age, sufficiently resilient that levels of subjective well-being are very stable over the life course? This article uses longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey and finds that self-reported life satisfaction amon...

It is widely believed that work-related training increases a worker's probability of moving up the job-quality ladder. This is usually couched in terms of effects on wages, but it has also been argued that training increases the probability of moving from non-permanent forms of employment to more permanent employment. This hypothesis is tested usin...

Objectives: Previous studies have consistently reported evidence of large significant associations between measures of psychological health and sickness absence. Some of this association, however, may be confounded by relevant covariates that have not been controlled. By using data with repeated observations from the same individuals, this study a...

This study developed a short form of the National Adult Reading Test — an inventory that estimates intellectual ability — to produce an instrument suitable for lay administration in population surveys. Data were provided by 816 participants in the dress rehearsal for wave 12 of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey. Particip...

The paper reports results from the first ever study of the effect of short-term weather and long-term climate on self-reported life satisfaction that uses longitudinal data. We find robust evidence that day-to-day weather variation impacts self-reported life satisfaction. Utilizing two sources of variation in the cognitive complexity of satisfactio...

Very little is known about how the differential treatment of sexual minorities could influence subjective reports of overall well-being. This paper seeks to fill this gap. Data from two large surveys that provide nationally representative samples for two different countries - Australia and the UK - are used to estimate a simultaneous equations mode...

It is widely believed that persons employed in jobs demanding long working hours are at greater risk of physical inactivity than other workers, primarily because they have less leisure time available to undertake physical activity. The aim of this study was to test this hypothesis using prospective data obtained from a nationally representative sam...

Using newly collected data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, this study presents new estimates of the earnings effects of sexual orientation in Australia and offers the first empirical investigation of the labour market trajectories of lesbian/gay/bisexual individuals. Our results show that gay males are: (...

This article provides a statistical review of the Australian labour market over the two decades to 2013. It examines changes in: the nature of labour supply and participation; labour utilisation; patterns of employment growth across states; the characteristics of jobs; and earnings. The period can reasonably be characterised as one of strong labour...

Many economists and educators favour public support for education on the premise that education improves the overall quality of life of citizens. However, little is known about the different pathways through which education shapes people's satisfaction with life overall. One reason for this is because previous studies have traditionally analysed th...

Data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey were used to calculate weighted norms for the written version of the Symbol Digits Modalities Test (SDMT) by gender, 5-year age groups and four levels of educational attainment. The sample comprised 14,456 Australians (47% male; age range 15–100), of whom 25% reported a...

Longitudinal survey data are used to test the degree to which worker expectations of future job loss are correlated with changes in labour market status. Three major findings are reported. First, perceived probabilities of expected job loss are only weakly related to both exogenous job separations and subsequent transitions to unemployment and inac...

The importance of panel, or longitudinal, survey data for analyzing subjective wellbeing, and especially its dynamics, is increasingly recognized. Analyses of such data, however, have to deal with two potential problems: (1) non-random attrition; and (2) panel conditioning. The former is a much researched topic. In contrast, panel conditioning has...

Cigarette smoking is a risk factor in a range of serious diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, stroke and type II diabetes. Theory suggests that working long hours will increase smoking propensities among workers. Consequently there is a significant body of evidence on the relationship between working time and smoking. Results, howeve...

Very little is known about how the differential treatment of sexual minorities could influence subjective reports of overall well-being. This paper seeks to fill this gap. Data from two large surveys that provide nationally representative samples for two different countries – Australia (the HILDA Survey) and the UK (the UK Household Longitudinal St...

Previous research into the correlates and determinants of non-response in longitudinal surveys has focused exclusively on why it is that respondents at one survey wave choose not to participate at future waves. This is very understandable if non-response is always an absorbing state, but in many longitudinal surveys, and certainly most household pa...

Our companion paper (Cummins et al. in J Happiness Stud, 2013) describes the statistical process used to demonstrate set-points and set-point-ranges for subjective wellbeing. The implications of set-points and homeostasis are now considered in the context of resilience. This discussion leads with a brief overview of resilience definitions and is fo...

This paper presents evidence for the existence of ‘set-points’ for subjective wellbeing. Our results derive from a 10-year longitudinal study in which subjective wellbeing has been measured using a single question of general life satisfaction. The process of data analysis is driven by logic based on the theory of subjective wellbeing homeostasis. T...

This study examines the impact of involuntary job loss on the mental health of family members. Estimates from fixed-effects panel data models, using panel data for Australia, provide little evidence of any negative spillover effect on the mental health of husbands as a result of their wives' job loss. The mental well-being of wives, however, declin...

Since its commencement in 2001, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey has become a much-used resource by researchers. Over the same time, the Australian population has evolved in a number of ways that the sample, even with ‘following rules’, cannot emulate. Most notable is the lack of recent immigrants arriving after 2001. A...

This paper provides a statistical overview of three new cognitive ability measures collected in wave 12 of the HILDA Survey: (i) Backwards Digit Span; (ii) the Symbol Digits Modalities Test; and (iii) a 25-item version of the National Adult Reading Test. The paper: analyses willingness to participate (as reflected in item response); examines the ev...

It is widely assumed that contingent forms of employment, such as fixed-term contracts, labour-hire and casual employment, are associated with low quality jobs. This hypothesis is tested using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, a nationally representative household panel survey covering a country with a...

Empirical studies have consistently reported that rates of involuntary job loss are significantly lower among female employees than among males. Only rarely, however, have the reasons for this differential been the subject of detailed investigation. In this article, household panel survey data from Australia are used that also find higher rates of...

Many economists and educators favour public support for education on the premise that education improves the overall well-being of citizens. However, little is known about the causal pathways through which education shapes people’s subjective well-being (SWB). This paper explores the direct and indirect well-being effects of extra schooling induced...