Measuring Hours Worked
There are four alternative measures of (total) hours worked available to us: actual and usual total hours worked from each of the HLFS and HLFS-IS questionnaires. Ideally, for consistency with the earnings data being collected, we would use the actual hours measure from the HLFS-IS. However, the HLFS-IS only collects hours information for wage and salary earnings’ jobs – in particular, this information is not collected for self-employment. In contrast, the main HLFS survey does collect hours worked for all those who reported they were employed (including self-employed). In addition, it is apparent that, at least for a small number of individuals, the recorded hours from the HLFS-IS are on an annual rather than weekly basis; whereas this doesn’t appear to occur for the HLFS sourced hours.
For these reasons, we have used actual hours worked from the HLFS as our primary source of hours worked for all individuals. A secondary issue is that some individuals report non-zero earnings but zero actual hours worked. This could occur validly for at least two reasons: first, for an individual on annual (or other paid) leave; and second, for those who are not working but receiving ACC income, which we include as earnings for the distributional analysis in this paper. To handle this issue, we use the HLFS measure of usual hours worked if the individual has non-zero earnings but zero actual hours worked.
| Sample Year | 1998-2004 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Years | 1998 | 2004 | Change (%) | |
| All Years | 1998 | 2004 | Change (%) | |
| Sample Year | 1998-2004 | |||
| No. Working Age Adults | 185,868 | 23,277 | 23,047 | |
| Fraction: IS Imputed | 0.15 | 0.14 | 0.15 | |
| IS Imputed or IS/HLFS Proxy | 0.28 | 0.27 | 0.29 | |
| Average Age | 37.6 | 37.2 | 38.0 | 2.3 |
| Fraction: | ||||
| Female | 0.51 | 0.51 | 0.51 | 0.3 |
| Married | 0.62 | 0.62 | 0.61 | -0.8 |
| Maori | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.11 | 0.6 |
| Pacific Island | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.06 | 20.7 |
| Pakeha | 0.76 | 0.78 | 0.74 | -5.8 |
| Other ethnicity | 0.08 | 0.07 | 0.10 | 49.7 |
| University Qualifications | 0.12 | 0.11 | 0.15 | 36.4 |
| Other Post-school Qualifications | 0.36 | 0.36 | 0.36 | -1.4 |
| School Qualifications | 0.28 | 0.28 | 0.28 | 1.8 |
| No Qualifications | 0.24 | 0.25 | 0.21 | -14.7 |
| Work Fulltime | 0.53 | 0.51 | 0.55 | 7.5 |
| Work Part-time | 0.18 | 0.17 | 0.18 | 0.2 |
| Average weekly hours worked(a) | 36.9 | 36.9 | 37.0 | 0.2 |
| Fraction: | ||||
| Reported Income | 0.84 | 0.84 | 0.84 | 0.4 |
| Reported Earnings | 0.70 | 0.68 | 0.73 | 6.9 |
| Reported Benefits | 0.15 | 0.16 | 0.13 | -15.8 |
| Reported NZ Superannuation | 0.02 | 0.02 | 0.01 | -56.9 |
| Reported Miscellaneous Income | 0.07 | 0.08 | 0.06 | -22.7 |
| Average Total Income | $27,972 | $26,628 | $29,778 | 11.8 |
| Average Earnings | $25,689 | $24,017 | $27,788 | 15.7 |
| Average Benefit Income | $1,817 | $1,956 | $1,650 | -15.7 |
| Average NZ Superannuation | $165 | $249 | $90 | -63.8 |
| Average Misc. Income | $301 | $406 | $250 | -38.4 |
Notes: All earnings and incomes are reported in constant 2004 dollar-values, adjusted using the CPI. Ethnicity refers to Statistics New Zealand’s “prioritised” ethnicity. Qualifications refer to highest recorded qualification. Fulltime versus Part-time work is determined by whether weekly hours worked are greater or less than 30 hours.
(a) Average weekly hours is calculated among those individuals working.
| Sample Year | 1998-2004 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Years | 1998 | 2004 | Change (%) | |
| No. Working Age Adults | 185,868 | 23,277 | 23,047 | |
| Fraction in Households with: | ||||
| Single adult, no kids | 0.08 | 0.08 | 0.09 | 9.2 |
| Single adult with kids | 0.03 | 0.04 | 0.03 | -9.9 |
| Multiple adults, no kids | 0.49 | 0.49 | 0.50 | 1.1 |
| Multiple adults with kids | 0.38 | 0.38 | 0.38 | -1.8 |
| Single adult, retired | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Multiple adults, retired | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.01 | -20.8 |
| Average No. in Household: | ||||
| All Persons | 3.25 | 3.27 | 3.24 | -1.0 |
| Children, aged 0-14 | 0.78 | 0.80 | 0.77 | -4.1 |
| Working Age, aged 15-64 | 2.42 | 2.42 | 2.42 | -0.1 |
| Retired, aged 65+ | 0.05 | 0.05 | 0.05 | 2.8 |
| Fraction in Households with: | ||||
| Income | 0.98 | 0.98 | 0.98 | 0.0 |
| Earnings | 0.88 | 0.86 | 0.89 | 3.7 |
| Benefits | 0.25 | 0.26 | 0.22 | -16.3 |
| NZ Superannuation | 0.05 | 0.06 | 0.05 | -24.6 |
| Miscellaneous Income | 0.14 | 0.15 | 0.12 | -21.3 |
| Average Equivalised Total Income | $37,715 | $35,970 | $40,087 | 11.4 |
| Average Equivalised Earnings | $34,695 | $32,560 | $37,453 | 15.0 |
| Average Equivalised Benefit Income | $2,044 | $2,193 | $1,809 | -17.5 |
| Average Equivalised NZ Super | $491 | $587 | $417 | -29.0 |
| Average Equivalised Misc. Income | $485 | $630 | $407 | -35.4 |
Notes: All “equivalised” earnings and incomes are reported in constant 2004 dollar-values, adjusted using the CPI, and have been adjusted for the number of people in the household (N) using the LIS (0.5) equivalisation that divides the household income measure by N1/2.
| 1998-2004 | Observed Endowments | Observed | Unobserved | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Change | Total | Demographics | Employment | Coefficients | Effects | |
| A. Working-age Individuals’ Total Income | ||||||
| Mean | 0.098 | 74.4% | 21.9% | 52.5% | 25.9% | -0.3% |
| 10th | 0.060 | 66.6% | 40.6% | 26.0% | 15.8% | 17.6% |
| 25th | 0.153 | 93.6% | 3.2% | 90.4% | 12.3% | -6.0% |
| Median | 0.098 | 77.0% | 21.2% | 55.8% | 27.0% | -4.0% |
| 75th | 0.052 | 69.3% | 52.9% | 16.4% | 51.2% | -20.5% |
| 90th | 0.062 | 57.0% | 48.2% | 8.8% | 64.1% | -21.1% |
| B. Working-age Individuals’ Equivalised Total Household Income | ||||||
| Mean | 0.098 | 72.4% | 21.4% | 51.0% | 27.9% | -0.3% |
| 10th | 0.112 | 81.3% | 8.8% | 72.5% | 23.6% | -4.9% |
| 25th | 0.122 | 73.7% | 22.0% | 51.6% | 32.8% | -6.5% |
| Median | 0.031 | 179.5% | 50.9% | 128.7% | -71.1% | -8.5% |
| 75th | 0.087 | 56.0% | 28.5% | 27.5% | 48.8% | -4.8% |
| 90th | 0.075 | 40.4% | 13.6% | 26.7% | 56.7% | 2.9% |
Notes: For the individual income analysis, the demographic variables are a quadratic in age, dummy variables for gender, marital status, highest qualification (No qualifications, School, Post-school, and University), and ethnicity (Maori, Pacific Island, Asian, and Other); the employment variables are dummy variables for part-time and full-time work.
For the equivalised household income analysis of working-age individuals, the demographic variables are a quadratic in the average age of working-age adults in the household, the number of persons in the household and the fraction who are working-age, the fractions of working-age adults who are female, married, with alternative highest qualification (No qualifications, School, Post-school, and University), and ethnicity (Maori, Pacific Island, Asian, and Other); the employment variables are the fractions of working-age adults working part-time and full-time; and we also include dummy variables for each of the household-types described in Table 2.
