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Abstract
This paper compares the level and source of income for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians using data from the 2011 wave of the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA). Three sources of income are considered: wages and salaries; government benefits; and income from businesses, investments and other private transfers. Consistent with many previous studies, Indigenous Australians have, on average, lower total income than non-Indigenous Australians, with this difference being largest for those who are full-time employed. The difference is also larger for males compared to females. In terms of non-wage income, Indigenous men and women receive a much smaller proportion of income from other sources than their non-Indigenous counterparts (primarily business and investment income). This is particularly the case for those who are not in the labour force (NILF). Correspondingly, government benefits constitute a higher proportion of income for the Indigenous population than for the non-Indigenous. This is true for both males and females, and for all labour force states, although the difference is largest for part-time employed and those who are NILF. Given Indigenous persons are also more likely to be unemployed than non-Indigenous persons, they are more likely to be dependent solely on government payments as a source of income at any one time. The implications of these findings are discussed, as well as directions for future research.
JEL Classification: J15, J21, J78
Keywords: Personal income, wages, government payments, Indigenous employment, labour market segmentation
1.Introduction
There is an extensive literature on the extent to which there are differences in the income of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians (e.g., Altman and Hawke 1993; Altman, Biddle and Hunter 2005; Biddle 2013; and Hunter and Gray 2008). This literature has consistently found that Indigenous Australians have a much lower average1 income than non-Indigenous Australians. For example, according to the 2008 National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Survey, the average disposable weekly income of Indigenous males was 63 per cent that of non-Indigenous males and, for Indigenous females, it was 79 per cent that of non-Indigenous females (Biddle 2013).
There however is very little research on source of income for the Indigenous population and whether this differs to that of the non-Indigenous population. This type of information can be used in a variety...
