The Longitudinal Surveys of Australian Youth (LSAY) and its antecedents arose from the shocks to the Australian economy and the economic restructuring of the 1970s and 1980s with rising unemployment and particularly high youth unemployment. The design, scope and data collection of LSAY has not changed much since its inception in 1995. This has been both a strength - because it has provided a long period of highly comparable data - and also a weakness - because it has meant limited evolution to meet changing needs.

The remit of the LSAY review is to consider how the survey has been used, whether it has provided value for money and how it could be improved and made more useful for the evolving policy environment.