The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey is a household-based panel study which began in 2001. It has the following key features:

• It collects information about economic and subjective well-being, labour market dynamics and family dynamics.
• Special questionnaire modules are included each wave.
• The wave 1 panel consisted of 7,682 households and 19,914 individuals. In wave 11 this was topped up with an additional 2,153 households and 5,477 individuals.
• Interviews are conducted annually with all adult members of each household.
• The panel members are followed over time.
• The funding has been guaranteed for sixteen waves, though the survey is designed to continue for longer than this.
• Academic and other researchers can apply to use the General Release datasets for their research.

This report presents brief statistical analyses of the first 12 waves of the study, which were conducted between 2001 and 2012. It examines nine topics: family life; economic wellbeing; labour market outcomes; health and subjective wellbeing; cognitive activity and cognitive ability; education and labour market outcomes; family background and economic wellbeing; expenditure on food; and sexual identity. As wide- ranging as these topics are, this report should be viewed as containing only ‘selected findings’. Each of the topics is covered in a cursory fashion, and there are many other topics that can be examined with the data. The HILDA Survey is an extremely rich data source, and testament to this is the large number of publications on a diverse range of topics.