The WageIndicator web-survey : past and future developments 16 April 2008

1. TheWageIndicatorweb-survey: past and future developments16 April 2008 Kea Tijdens University of Amsterdam Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies

2. What is the WageIndicator web-survey? • Where? • Posted at all 36 national WageIndicator websites • These websites provide free Salary Check information • Message to the web-visitor: please complete the survey in return • What? • Web-survey has questions on work and wages • Web-survey questions are largely similar across countries • Why? • The survey data is used for: 1) the calculations underlying the Salary Check 2) research

3. Past improvements • It is an international web-survey • Harmonize survey questions across countries • Develop search trees for occupation & industry • … leading to web-survey data • Convert web-data into statistical data • Cope with large numbers of observations • Cope with a continuous flow of data • Clean data

4. Recent improvements • The survey is split in two parts • critical survey question in two parts (both 10 minutes) • in between a go/no go decision to 2nd part • AIM: to reduce break off & increase number of completed surveys • Dynamic pageing • several questions on one web page • conditional questions pop up • AIM: to reduce the number of clicks for the visitor • Output lines at the bottom of the page • summary of answers to the survey question • AIM: to improve data quality • Recent improvements in cleaning of wage data

5. A survey tool • Open for new survey questions • We now can add survey questionsfor national partners/affiliates (at cost price) • f.e. in NL survey we added questions on flexiblewages for FNV Bondgenoten (2007/4 – 2008/1) • Two possibilities 1) adding new survey questions in the ‘project block’ between part 1 and part 2 • addressing all respondents • addressing a selection, such as metal workers, workers 55+, low-educated workers, or alike 2) launching a category questionnaire for a specific group with specific questions & routing, f.e. workers in one company or in one occupation

6. Future improvements ?? • Salary Check at end questionnaire • Feed back to the respondents, benchmarking their reported wage with wages in their peer group • Respondent-side updates • Let respondents update their data in a ‘profile’ • Thus starting a panel • Fun & trust • It must be more fun to complete the survey • Respondents must continue to trust the survey

7. Future data quality • Improving measuring respondent’s • education • home region • industrial relations at the workplace • informal labour market: employment status & wages • company names in the large Multinational database • using textboxes to improve search trees • Weights for the data • Updating & improving weightsso that the data resemble a national labour force

8. A worldwide wages database • A globalising economy … • requires worldwide comparative data on wages • which are currently only very limited available • WageIndicator … • might develop as a worldwide database on wages, benefits, working hours, working conditions, industrial relations at the workplace • all publicly available through national Salary Checks and Occupation profiles • thus increasing transparency in the labour market

9. The end • Thank you for your attention • For more information:www.wageindicator.org