A Comparison Of The Results Of The Survey Of Labour And Income Dynamics Slid And The Survey Of Consumer Finances Scf 1993 1996 PDF Download

In 1993, the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) began to collect longitudinal labour market and income data. SLID is also capable of producing annual cross-sectional data. In the case of income data, the survey content is very similar to the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF). This report presents results from SLID and SCF for a variety of important time series. The estimates from the two sources line up very well and tell essentially the same story. Had the major Statistics Canada income releases over the past four years been based on SLID rather than SCF, the main messages reaching the public would have been no different. It is quite feasible for SLID to replace SCF as of the 1998 reference year, with a generous period of overlap of five years between the two surveys. Apart from the efficiency reason for moving to SLID, there are information gains to be made. SLID has a very large selection of demographic, family and labour market variables. In addition to the familiar income content, SLID offers a broad range of demographic and labour variables that can be used in both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. This report also provides a selection of tables on income dynamics from SLID to provide a flavour of the new information now available due to SLID's longitudinal nature.