Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics: A Survey Overview

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Survey objectives
What's new?
Survey design
Household relationships
SLID: a longitudinal survey
Computer-assisted telephone interviewing

Survey objectives

The Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) is an important source for income data for Canadian families, households and individuals. Introduced in 1993, SLID provides an added dimension to traditional surveys on labour market activity and income: the changes experienced by individuals and families through time. At the heart of the survey's objectives is the understanding of the economic well-being of Canadians.

Starting with reference year 1996, the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) officially replaced the annual Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). Though the income content of the two surveys is similar, SLID adds a large selection of variables that capture transitions in Canadian jobs, income and family events.

SLID, as a longitudinal survey, interviews the same people from one year to the next for a period of six years. The survey's longitudinal dimension allows evaluation of concurrent and often related events, which yields greater insight on the nature and extent of poverty in Canada: What socio-economic shifts do individuals and families live through?  How do these shifts vary with changes in their paid work, family make-up, receipt of government transfers and other factors? What proportion of households are persistently poor year after year, and what makes it possible for others to emerge from periods of low income?

SLID also provides information on a broad selection of human capital variables, labour force experiences and demographic characteristics such as education, family relationships and household composition. Its breadth of content combined with a relatively large sample makes it a unique and valuable data set.

What's new?

Introduction of new variables

Student loans

Since 2005, three student loan variables have been introduced. Those variables indicate whether respondents already received a student loan, what the total amount borrowed was and how much has not been repaid. For more information, please see the section Survey Content - Education.

Changes to variables

For this release, SLID revised the following variables:

Labour weight change in 2005 – historical revision of labour weight from 1993 to 2004

The original labour weight was modified to help users who had to deal with a large amount of missing data. The purpose of the labour weight modification was to reduce the number of individuals with a non null labour weight with no information from the labour interview. Before the change, the labour weight used the definition of respondents at the household level. That meant that if at least one person in a household answered the labour component, everyone in that household, aged 16 years or older, was considered a respondent and thus had a non null labour weight, even if they had not responded at the labour interview. With the new labour weight, everyone with a non null weight responded at least partially at the labour interview.

The total number of individuals aged 25 and over remained the same with the use of the new labour weight. The weight of individuals aged under 16 was set to zero (since they do not respond at the labour interview) and the number of individuals aged 16 to 24 changed very slightly (because of a change in the calibration control groups). The new labour weight reduces non-response and the degree varies according to the characteristics studied.

Modification of Public Health Premiums and MBM Disposable Income - revision of 1999 to 2004

SLID revised the calculation of Public Health Premiums for individuals, census families, and economic families in the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. The revisions occurred due to previous overestimation of the amount of health premiums paid by lower income families in Alberta and British Columbia. As a result of these changes, MBM disposable income variable for individuals, census families and economic families in Alberta, British Columbia, and at the Canada level were also revised.