The investigation into the integration of tertiary education administrative data with the Linked Employer-Employee Dataset (LEED) indicates that the integration is feasible. This conclusion was reached following an examination of the quality of the input data, how well it can be integrated, the ability of the integrated dataset to produce official statistics and research, and an examination of the issues surrounding the protection of individual privacy and data confidentiality.
Collectively, the input datasets are of sufficiently high quality to enable official statistics to be produced from the integrated data (including improvements to existing LEED statistics). The input datasets can be linked to create an integrated dataset that is of sufficiently quality to produce official statistics for years 2003 onwards.
From this integrated dataset it is possible to produce statistics that provide a relatively simple but coherent overview of future employment and earnings experiences of recent participants in tertiary education. This information is not readily available from other sources.
Work undertaken to test the ability of this integrated dataset to support policy-relevant research has confirmed its potential. The results of the demonstration research papers suggest that this integration would provide a valuable new data source for research on the labour market outcomes of tertiary education.
This feasibility study was a joint project involving Statistics NZ, Inland Revenue (IRD), MoE, the Department of Labour (DoL), and the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). The contribution of seconded researchers from DoL and MoE is gratefully acknowledged.