Evaluation of the Australian Wage Subsidy Special Youth ...

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work in later sections, this supplied weight does not take account of further non-response
beyond the 1984 survey, and so additional weights will be developed to adjust for the
non-response to the 1985 and 1986 surveys.
Mcrae et al. (1985) examine the importance of each of the available variables 119 to the
response rate in 1984. In univariate analysis of response rates, they found that 15-19 year
olds were more likely to have been interviewed in 1984. Amongst this age group females
had a higher response than males, but for 20-24 year olds there was no gender difference
in response. The response rate was higher for those who had been unemployed longer.
Movers had a much lower response rate than non-movers, because they could be located
to interview less often. Certain states, Queensland and the Northern Territory, had lower
response rates. Logistic regression analysis further examined the response, removing the
correlation between these variables and showing the direct association with the response
rate. This analysis identified mobility to be the chief variable related to non-response, but
age, gender, duration of registration and state of registration had independent effects as
well. Further analysis found that the strong differential response effect for movers and
non-movers affected labour force variables measured in the 1984 survey. A final analysis
compared ALS estimates to corresponding published data from the Australian Bureau of
Statistics, which gave similar results or showed readily explainable differences. These
results were interpreted as giving further confidence to the validity of ALS estimates.
Comparison of the adjusted and unadjusted profiles gives an indication of the specific
features that are most strongly affected by survey design, selection and non-response.
Table 5.6 shows the effect on the data profile of adjusting for selection and response for
the 1984 survey respondents. In the first column is shown the unadjusted profile of the
data for certain key characteristics, while the second column shows how the weighted
sample profile appears. It can be seen that there is only a very slight effect on the profile.
119 Mcrae et al. (1985) p10: CES records held information on the age group (15-19 or 20-24), gender,
duration of unemployment (measured by the time from the date of registration with the Commonwealth
Employment Service [CES] to the date of sample selection, 30 June 1984; categories of less than 3 months,
between 3-9 months, more than 9 months CES registration), State or Territory of CES registration, country
of birth (Australia or overseas), marital status (married/defacto or unmarried), whether the address the
person lived at when interviewed was the same as the address of CES registration.