Telephone Surveys: Challenges for the Future

1. Telephone Surveys: Challenges for the Future Clyde Tucker Bureau of Labor Statistics

2. What Has Led to the Challenges • Technological Change • Societal Change

3. Technological Change • Less clustering in 100-banks • Declines in listing rates • Expansion of the areacodes • Multiple carriers • Number portability • Cell-only and cell-mostly households • Possible drop in the coverage of residential landline numbers

4. More on Technological Change • VoIP and wireless broadband • Single device for multiple types of communications • The availability of a cheaper mode—the Internet

5. Consequences of Technological Change • More complicated designs • Dual frame sampling • Use of multiple modes • New contact procedures, interviewer training, and outcome codes • More knowledgeable tech staff having a more central role • New weighting methodology • More reliance on cost-benefit analysis

6. Societal Change • The continued feasibility of telephone surveys depends much less on what communication devices we use to reach respondents than on the continued cooperation of these respondents

8. More on Societal change • Change in household composition • Decline in married couples heading households • Increase in households with unrelated individuals • Increase in single-person households • Growing linguistic and cultural diversity • Growing concerns about privacy and confidentiality • More two-earner households among married households • Possible loss in sense of community (Bowling Alone?) • Changing communication patterns in households • Technology • More eating away from home

9. Consequences of Societal Change • Increasing differences among subpopulations (interactions) • Procedural change • Management of phone surveys harder • Use of multiple modes and possible mode effects • Hiring of more diverse interviewers • Changes in pattern of call scheduling • Declining response rates (especially due to noncontact) • Growing concerns about nonresponse bias

10. Trends in Response Rates