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Health and Labour Force Participation WP 10/03

Appendix A

Appendix Table A1 - Definitions of SoFIE variables in participation models
Variable name Variable categories Notes
Labour market participation
  • Participating
  • Not participating (inactive)
 Labour force participation at the household interview date.
Labour market outcome
  • Full-time employment
  • Part-time employment
  • Unemployed
  • Inactive
 Labour market activity at the household interview date.  Hours are the average weekly hours a respondent worked whilst employed in the annual reference period.  Full-time hours are 30 hours or more.  Unemployed is not employed but actively looking for work.  Inactive is not employed and not looking for work. 
Gender
  • Male
  • Female
 -
Region of residence
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
  • Wellington
  • Rest of North Island
  • Canterbury
  • Rest of South Island
 -
Born in New Zealand
  • Yes
  • No
 -
Ethnicity
  • NZ/European
  • Māori
  • Pacific Islander
  • Other
 Respondents could report more than one ethnicity.  Where this occurred, respondents were assigned to a prioritised ethnicity in this order Māori, Pacific Islander, Other, NZ/European. 
Age at interview date - Continuous variable.
Aged 50 and over
  • Respondent 50 or over
  • Respondent under 50
 Age is at the interview date. 
Highest qualification
  • No qualification
  • School qualification
  • Post-school vocational qualification
  • Degree or higher
 Some respondents reported a fall in qualification level between waves.  Where this occurred the highest level of qualification was taken in later waves. 
Chronic disease indicator (grouped chronic disease)
  • No chronic disease
  • One or more chronic diseases
 An indicator of chronic disease presence.  Those for whom cancer is unknown who do not report any other chronic disease are assumed to not have a chronic disease. 
For each chronic disease
  • No chronic disease
  • Chronic disease
 The eight chronic diseases covered in SoFIE are asthma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, migraine and psychiatric conditions (depression, manic depression or schizophrenia).  The question on presence of diseases is only asked in Wave 3.  Other than for psychiatric conditions and for a small number of cases where data was missing, disease presence in earlier waves was derived using the presence of disease and the age at diagnosis.  As the question was on the age of diagnosis rather than the year, the variables created are not exact.  The age at diagnosis for psychiatric conditions is unknown.  As disease diagnosis in the survey period is likely to be small, after preliminary analysis of this group it was decided to assume that those with psychiatric conditions in Wave 3 have psychiatric conditions in Waves 1 and 2.  
For each chronic disease (excluding psychiatric conditions)
  • No chronic disease
  • Chronic disease diagnosed 0 to <5 years ago
  • Chronic disease diagnosed 5 or more years ago
 Derived using chronic disease diagnosis, the age at the household interview date and, where present, the age of disease diagnosis.  This is a proxy for the number of years since diagnosis, as we only know the age at diagnosis not the actual date.  The age of diagnosis is not asked for psychiatric conditions (depression, schizophrenia, manic depression) so this variable is not available for this disease.
Self-rated health
  • Excellent
  • Very good
  • Good
  • Fair
  • Poor
 -
Studying
  • No studying undertaken in reference period
  • Some studying undertaken
 Each respondent is defined to have undertaken study if they report one month or more in which they have studied full-time or part-time towards a formal qualification in the reference period.  If a respondent was still at school; reported that they were economically inactive as a result of being a student or studied full-time for nine or more months, they are classified as students and excluded from the analysis.       
Partner
  • Working partner
  • Non-working partner
  • Single
 -
Children
  • No dependent children
  • Child(ren) minimum age <5
  • Child(ren) minimum age 5 to 17
 A dependent child is one who is under 18 years and not in full-time employment. 
Benefit
  • No government benefits in reference period
  • Government benefits received in reference period
These include ACC, student allowance payment, IRD payment, Veteran Pension Fund and  WINZ benefit payment .  It also includes the small number of respondents under 65 who receive NZ Superannuation payments. 
Number of years in employment - Variable to note number of years in paid employment.  Derived from the number of weeks in paid employment in the wave and the number of years reported to be in paid work before the first interview (this is assumed to be before the beginning of the annual reference period).  If a respondent has at least one week in paid employment in the wave they are counted as having an additional year in paid employment.    
Household income less personal income - Continuous variable which is the log of the consumer price adjusted household income less the consumer price adjusted personal income.  Personal income is removed owing to its correlation with labour force participation.  There was a small number of respondents with negative personal/household income.  This is possible if self-employment income is negative.  As the number with negative income was very small, these were imputed to be zero.  One was added to all values to enable logs to be taken.  Income was not adjusted to reflect family size/composition. 
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