Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics

Description: provides longitudinal and annual measures of the labour market experiences and economic well-being of Canadians

Who/what is surveyed: all persons, regardless of age, residing in the ten Canadian provinces, except persons living on Indian reserves, inmates of institutions and full-time members of the Armed Forces

How the data is collected: a preliminary interview takes place at the beginning of each panel to collect background information. Each of the six years has a split-interview format, with labour topics covered in January and income topics in May

Geographic detail: Canada, provinces, economic regions, census metropolitan areas, urban/rural areas

Demographic detail: age, sex, marital status, marital spells, immigration status, mother tongue, country of birth, registered Indian or member of visible minority and place of birth of parents, fertility, household characteristics, and economic and census family characteristics, including life events, blended families, number of generations

Information collected:

1. nature and pattern of labour market activity (class of worker, number of jobs, job changes, labour force status and main job, earnings
2. job characteristics (firm size, how job obtained, industry, occupation, usual hours, work schedule, absences from work)
3. paid workers (union membership, job benefits)
4. jobless periods (duration, job search, desire for employment)
5. activity limitation (incidence and effect on labour market activity)
6. work history
7. educational attainment and activity (enrolment, type of institution, field of study, type of degree, years of schooling)
8. geographic mobility
9. income by source
10. earnings (wages, self-employment)
11. investment income (interest, dividends, capital gains)
12. government transfers (Employment Insurance benefits, workers’ compensation, Social Assistance, Canada/Quebec Pension Plan)
13. pension income (employment pensions or superannuation, RRIFs)
14. other income (support payments, RRSP withdrawals)

Frequency: a new panel is introduced every three years (starting in 1993) and remains in the survey for six years; labour interview, annually in January after reference year; income interview, annually in May after reference year (the respondents can avoid this interview if they agree to have their income tax file consulted)

Sample size: Two panels, each with 15,000 to 20,000 households

Data availability: The first panel covers reference years 1993 to 1998; and the second panel covers reference years 1996 to 2001, and so on.

Reference period: previous calendar year

Release dates: 15 months after the reference year

Response rates: over 90% (labour and income interviews and access to income tax file combined)

What makes the data valuable:
- detailed examination of changes and transitions at the microdata level
- analysis of spell durations (unemployment, not in labour force)
- analysis of flows into and out of different statuses
- data at the person level, economic and census family level and job level
- mix of detailed labour and income data for six years
- starting with reference year 1998, this survey will be the principal source of annual personal income statistics, replacing the Survey of Consumer Finances

Related surveys or data:
starting point for content development was the Labour Market Activity Survey for labour content; and the Survey of Consumer Finances for income content

Products and services:
1. Income in Canada, Catalogue No. 75-202XPE (paper) or 75-202XIE (internet), June 2000

2. A summary of the research themes is given in the June 1998 Survey Overview—Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (Catalogue no. 75F0011XPB). More details are provided in the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics Microdata User’s Guide (Catalogue no. 75M0001GPE). Both are available free of charge on the Internet.

3. Working Paper Series: available on paper for a small fee, or free of charge on the Internet, 15 to 20 issues per year (Catalogue no. 75F0002MIE)

4. Public Use Microdata on CD-ROM: comes with the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics Microdata User’s Guide. Latest issue: four waves of data available in Autumn 1999 (Catalogue no. 75M0001XCB)

5. The Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics Electronic Data Dictionary (Catalogue no. 75F0026XIB) provides a list of variables and code sets available on diskette or on the Internet (free of charge).

6. Articles in Perspectives on Labour and Income,Catalogue no. 75-001-XPE, quarterly paper edition and Catalogue no. 75-001-XIE, monthly online edition.

7. A workshop for data users is also offered by the survey staff when and where the demand is sufficient.

8. "Do-it-yourself" custom retrievals: a data user may write a program to be sent to Statistics Canada in electronic form and run against the internal database. After suppression for confidentiality, the output is sent back to the user.

9. Custom retrievals are available on a cost-recovery basis.

Responsible division: Income Statistics