Current Education Variables

The education questions have been used to derive variables (listed in the table below) based on the Australian Standard Classification of Education (ASCED). There are a series of variables at the 3-digit ASCED level which contain information about:

• the number of qualifications completed (for new respondents only);
• which qualifications the respondent is currently studying for; and
• which qualifications have been obtained since the last interview (for continuing respondents only).

Where a qualification cannot be categorised to the detailed level (for example, 211 Graduate Diploma or 221 Graduate Certificate), the broader category has been used (for example, 200 Graduate Diploma and Graduate Certificate).

Unless you are specifically interested in what qualifications the respondent has completed since the last interview, you should use the history variables described earlier (which combines the answers provided in the current and previous wave interviews).

Note that a flag has been created to identify full time students (_edfts).

Table 16: Derived current education variables