Prof Mark Wooden
Professor Mark Wooden
SENIOR ASSOCIATE
Mark Wooden is Professorial Emeritus, University of Melbourne. From 2000 until 2024 he was Professor, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research. Prior to joining the Melbourne Institute in 2000, he was Acting Director of the National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University, Adelaide, where he had been employed for 18 years.
He is the author (or co-author) of four books, over 25 chapters in books, and well over 200 articles in academic journals. Much of his research has focused on contemporary trends and developments in Australian labour markets. He is arguably Australia’s leading researcher on trends in non-standard forms of employment and the impacts of these forms of employment on workers, as measured for example by earnings, job satisfaction, psychological well-being, work-family conflict, and fertility. His research interests, however, are wide-ranging and also include important contributions on changing working time patterns and its impacts, causes and correlates of subjective well-being, the influence of parental joblessness on later life outcomes of children, and disadvantage faced by sexual and gender minorities. The breadth of his research interests is reflected in a publication record that spans the breath of the social sciences, including (among others) economics, industrial relations, sociology, psychology, family studies, public health, and survey methods.
Perhaps of most significance, Professor Wooden was Director of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey project from its inception in 2000 until his retirement in 2024. The HILDA Survey is Australia’s first large-scale household panel survey and one of Australia’s largest research projects in the social sciences. Funded by the Australian Government, the first wave was conducted in 2001 with sample members re-interviewed every year. A key feature of the study has been the achievement of very high response rates, with re-interview rates reaching 95% in wave 5 and remaining at or above that rate in most years since. The data collected are available to researchers through a license from the Australian Government, and by mid-2025 had been used in well over 2000 research studies published in academic journals and countless other conference presentations, working papers, student dissertations, and reports (often by or for Government).
As the inaugural and long-running director of the study, as well as a prolific user of the data generated, Professor Wooden has developed expertise in the design and management of household survey data collections that will have few parallels within Australian academia. This includes everything from sample design, to question development and testing, to the development of survey protocols and materials that delver high rates of response while complying with informed consent and privacy requirements, to the management and protection of survey data.
In 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, and in 2025 made a Distinguished Fellow of the Economics Society of Australia.