Feature article

HILDA – The mother of
all surveys

You may have read about ACNielsen's work on the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey (HILDA) in previous issues of Enterprise . As Australia's peak longitudinal social and economic study, HILDA is a vital project for Government policymakers and academics, and for its 268 registered users. It is a great success story which highlights the importance of social and economic research, and is a project ACNielsen is proud to be a part of.

“Our preliminary estimate of the proportion of wave four respondents who were successfully interviewed in wave five is 94.4 percent. The comparable rate in (the previous) wave was 91.6 percent. We are delighted with this outcome, and believe it means our survey attrition rates are on a par with many other leading panel studies conducted elsewhere in the world. I would especially like to commend our fieldwork provider, ACNielsen, for a job very well done.”   Professor Mark Wooden, HILDA Project Director, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research, University of Melbourne (which oversees the project, funded by the Commonwealth Department of Family and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs)

The HILDA survey comprises interviews with 14,000 Australian residents in 7,700 households spread over metro, regional and country areas. A team of 133 highly trained interviewers worked on the last wave, making 43,000 attempted contacts, following the very best practice standards in survey design and management. A team of 20 multi-disciplinary staff at the ACNielsen offices in Sydney plans and co-ordinates the interviewer training, fieldwork management, panel management and data processing.

With more than 94 percent of panel members interviewed this year and an attrition rate two percentage points better than the equivalent British Household Panel study, it's not surprising that the Melbourne Institute's latest newsletter describes this year's result as “a fantastic achievement".

ACNielsen's principal survey methodologist, Lorna Hall, will be representing the business at the International Conference on Methodology of Longitudinal Surveys to be held in the UK later this year. The conference will bring together the worldwide research community to discuss state-of-the-art methodologies in carrying out longitudinal studies.