Wage Function: Australian Estimates Using the Income Distribution Survey.

Wage functions provide much useful descriptive information about those characteristics of individuals which are associated with relatively high or low wage rates. In any cross-sectional survey there are many individuals who are not working at the time the survey is carried out. Such people may be sick or temporarily unemployed, in which case a current wage rate is not available, or they may not be participating in the labour market, in which case there may not even be a previous wage to record. The estimation procedure obviously needs to allow for this sample selection aspect.