A cohort analysis of the determinants of employment and labour force participation: Indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, 1981 to 1996

Data from the 1981, 1986, 1991 and 1996 censuses are used to construct a synthetic panel which is used to conduct the first longitudinal estimates of the determinants of the probability of employment and participating in the labour force for Indigenous and non-Indigenous males and females. The major contribution of the article is to produce estimates of the effects of educational attainment which control for the effects of unobserved heterogeneity using 10-year age cohorts. This article demonstrates that the determinants of labour force status differ between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous populations and illustrates the need to use longitudinal techniques to control for important unobservable characteristics.