070329 ilo wageindicator1

7/29/2019 070329 ILO WageIndicator1

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The WageIndicatorweb surveyfor worldwide social science

research on wages

Paulien Osse, WageIndicator Foundation

Kea Tijdens, University of Amsterdam

29 March 2007, ILO


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The WageIndicatorconcept

National WageIndicatorwebsites with up-to-date work-related information

answering visitors emails

Salary Check

providing free occupation-specific wage information controlling for age, gender, education and region

Web survey asking the visitors a favor in return

completing a web survey on work and wages (prize incentive)

the data are used for researchand as input for the Salary Check

Large numbers of visitors worldwide, the public shows a desire for wage information

and is willing to complete the web survey


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A brief history(Netherlands)

1999 desire for wage information on Internetdetailed occupation wage data needed

for research 2000 survey about work and wages

in womens magazines

2001 launch womens WageIndicatorwebsite

with web surveyand Salary Checkfor 45 occupations

2002 launch websites for men, 40+, youth

2004 Salary Checkfor 400 occupations

2006 400,000 web visitors per month in NL


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To othercountries

2004 Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain,Finland, Italy, Poland, United Kingdom(EU funding 6th Framework Program)

Hungary(EU funding EQUAL fund)

2005 Argentina, Brazil, MexicoIndia, S-Korea, S-Africa,(funding NL development aid)

2006 USA(funding Harvard Law School)

2007 China, Russia, Sweden(contracts about to sign)


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WageIndictatorFoundation

The WageIndicatorFoundation owns the WageIndicatorconcept

is a not-for-profit organization

Its mission statement

Share and compare wage information.Contribute to a transparent labor market.Provide free, accurate wage data through salary checks onnational websites.Collect wage data through web surveys.

Founded in 2003 under Dutch law by University of Amsterdam

NL branch of the international career website Monster

NL Dutch Confederation of Trade Unions (FNV)


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WageIndicatorwebsites

2007 35 websites in 17 countries, most of them

managed by web journalists

extra websites for multilingual countries,for women, elderly workers, IT staff (India)

thousands of links in other websites

Web visitors must trust

the information provided in a Salary Check(thus it must offer high quality information)

volunteering their data in the survey

receiving a response to visitors email

Web-marketing is critical

cooperation with media groups, career sites, trade

unions, all with a strong Internet presence


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Media parters andweb-marketing

Worldwide partners Career site Monster MSN Dutch World Service

Partners with established reputations University of Amsterdam Erasmus of Rotterdam Harvard Law School Leading national newspapers and portals

Gazeta Wyborcza (PL)

El Pais (ES) La Nacion (AR) UOL (BR) Sueddeutsche (DE) Mail & Guardian (ZA) Etc.


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The survey

Target population: labor force wage-earners in formal and informal economy self-employed, free lancers, home workers

(with SEWA in India)

Questions on Occupation (4 dgt ISCO), industry (4 dgt NACE),

education, work history, wages, benefits, hours,personal questions

Questionnaire

completion takes approximately 20 minutes survey has parallel questions addressing raregroups in the labor force to prevent break-off

optimization as for the number of characters, clicksand pages


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The technique

Questionnaire Management System QMS

developed for WageIndicator, using Open Source

manages a multi-country, multi-lingual survey

facilitates complicated routing, downloadingcodebooks and uploading languages

includes a search tree application for questionson occupation, industry, region

Data storage

the data is securely stored on serversin USA, NL and India

quarterly data releases


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Web traffic

Visits totals

2005: 4.5 million

2006: 7.8 million

January 2007: > 800,000 Prognosis 2007: 10 million

Variation per country, some examples

NL: > 400,000/month (since 2001, household name) DE: > 100,000/month (since 2004, large population)

BR/AR: 25,000/month (since 2006, well linked)

ZA/IT/KR: < 1,000/month (weaker teams)


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The response(1)

2006Total visits 7.8 million

Fully completed questionnaires 158,000

Data for research and salary check309,000(2004-2006)

Response rate overall

3.85 %

Large variation across countries

Cross-country analysis of response rates


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The response(2)

Sample size (fully completed)


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Respondent-sidefeedback

Feedback on the websites

visitors use the website for their decisionsabout schooling, occupational choice,wage negotiations, and job mobility

we know from visitors email

Feedback on the survey

open-ended question If you have any comments

on the questionnaire, please do so here passive feedback through break-off

we want visitors to have fun in completing thequestionnaire (and they report back that they do)


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Volunteerweb surveys

Selection bias and Internet access worldwide Internet access rates are increasing fast this population is becoming more and more

representativeof the population at large

it will boom with wireless access

Selection bias in choice of website? web visitors can choose out of millions of websites only a minor part visits a WageIndicatorwebsite

web traffic can be directed in number and in targetgroup by means of web marketing

Selection bias in completing the survey? 110 % of the web visitors completes the

questionnaire (f.e. Finland 10 %)


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Findings onselection bias

In all countries

the small groups in the labor force are under-represented, f.e. workers in small part-time jobs

low educated are increasingly not underrepresented elderly workers 55+ are underrepresented

gender representation varies across countries

In Netherlands 2002-2006 the underrepresentation of these socio-demographic

groups has declined in the past years


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Coping withselection bias

Web marketing addressing the target population at large

sites for sub-populations otherwise not fully reached

Routing through the questionnaire to prevent rare groups from break-off

Weighting with aggregate data aggregate socio economic LFS data is used for

weighting national WageIndicatordata

Weighting with micro data

micro-data from representative surveys will be usedto develop weights, using similar questions inWageIndicator, currently explored in the US

Weighting with a reference survey using a small reference survey for weighting,

currently explored in the Netherlands

Volunteer web


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Volunteer websurveys are

advantageous

because they can be held continuously costs are not linear related to sample size

investment costs are relatively large-> conducting a continuous survey is profitable

for WageIndicatorcontinuity is a prerequisitebecause of web marketing investments

continuous surveys allow for temporaryplug-in questions

because they can lead to large sample sizes allows for analyses of sub-sets

allows for presenting randomly items from a pool

allows for questions addressing relatively small

groups, thus acting as a screening device


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The research

Research community

increasing numbers of researchers use the data

On wages and working hours

cross-country wage differentials for occupations

gender pay gap and the motherhood penalty modeling preferences for a change in working hours

On work place relations

attitudes towards collective bargaining coverage

effect of dismissals on self-perceived job insecurity On labor markets

the multi-dimensionality of the informal labor marketwithin and across countries

spill over effects of MNEs in local employment


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Is this new?

Yes, it is because

worldwide, neither high quality aggregate datanor micro-data about wages, bonuses, andworking hours are available

worldwide, WageIndicatoris the first surveygathering wage data in so many countries

worldwide, it is one of the first surveysusing web marketing for scientific data collection

and because

the exchange of informationfrom research to the public andfrom the public to research is not often seen


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A GlobalWageIndicator

The plan a GlobalWageIndicatorplan to enlarge the weboperation to 75 countries in 5 continents

inspired by the globalizing economy and the need forworldwide data on wages, currently not available

jointly with International Labor Organization of theUnited Nations, Harvard Law School, University ofBelgrano (AR), and Indian Institute ofManagement/Ahmedabad (India)

Its aims contributing to a transparent labor market by provi-

ding reliable data about wages to a worldwide public

collecting data for worldwide wage trend reports andfor researching the impact of globalization

submitting plans to funding agencies in 2007


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The role of ILO

Support for the 75-countries plan

Using the dataset for wage data orother data

Input for funding options

post Soviet area

Arab speaking world

Sub-Saharan Africa


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Thank you for your attention

www.wageindicator.org

070329 ilo wageindicator1

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