1 / 21

Monetary Incentives for Survey Respondents:

Monetary Incentives for Survey Respondents:. Assessing Implementation, Operation, and Performance Measures for Two Census Bureau Demographic Surveys International Field Directors & Technologies Conference Nashville, Tennessee (May 20, 2003). Discussion Topics.

laura-myers
Download Presentation

Monetary Incentives for Survey Respondents:

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Monetary Incentives for Survey Respondents: Assessing Implementation, Operation, and Performance Measures for Two Census Bureau Demographic Surveys International Field Directors & Technologies Conference Nashville, Tennessee (May 20, 2003)

  2. Discussion Topics Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) Incentive Results for Past and Current Panels Survey Program Dynamics (SPD) Incentive Results Past and Current SPD Lessons Learned on Demographic Surveys

  3. Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) • Provide information to assist in the reform and evaluation of: • Welfare programs • Taxes • Entitlement programs • Survey estimates: • Cross-sectional • longitudinal

  4. 1996 SIPP Incentive Usage

  5. 2001 SIPP Incentive Experiment Guidelines Treatment 1: $40 debit card issued at RO/(S)FR discretion, conditioned on obtaining a completed interview, Waves 1-9 (n=2200, per wave). Treatment 2: Non-discretionary, unconditional $40 debit card sent via mail to previous wave non-respondents, Waves 4-9 Control No incentive eligibility (W1-9).

  6. SIPP 2001 Incentive Program Sample

  7. Chart 1. 2001 SIPP Panel Conditional Incentive Household versus Control Group Response Rates Conditional incentive household response rate significantly Higher than control in Waves 1 – 5.

  8. Chart 2. 2001 SIPP Panel Unconditional Incentive Household Conversion Rates by Wave Treatment 2 Conversion rates significantly higher than control group for Wave 5.

  9. Survey of Program Dynamics (SPD) • Follow-up to the SIPP mandated by Congress to assess welfare reform • Inherited SIPP sample loss of 26% from 1992/93 SIPP Panels known as the Basic (Core) • The Full SPD consists of: Basic, 1997 NI, and 1992-93 SIPP NI samples

  10. SPD - Incentive Usage – 1997 Through 2001

  11. Table 1. SPD Sample Loss History

  12. 2002 SPD Panel Incentive Use • Eligibility factors for Unconditional $40: • Type A noninterviews from 1998- 2001 • Households that received an incentive in any SPD between 1999-2001 • New potential Type A’s in 2002

  13. Table 2. 2002 SPD Response Rates

  14. Chart 3. SPD 1992/93 and 1997 NI Sample Results

  15. Chart 4. SPD Basic and Full Sample Results

  16. What the Census Bureau has learned about Incentives on Two Demographic Surveys?

  17. How Census Regional Office Staff Feel About the Incentive Program In August 2002, all RO’s participated in focus group discussions on implementation, operation, and incentive performance. • 93% feel incentive experiment procedures are easy to follow. • 50% feel (S)FR’s and FR’s have to make fewer contacts, phone or in person, to complete interviews with debit cards. • 58% reported they changed their debit card distribution plan since the 2001 incentive experiment started. • 93% feel incentives are effective for converting refusal. • 57% feel debit card use has improved FR performance.

  18. How Respondent Feel About Incentives Major respondent responses to RECINCV@a..c, “How do you feel about receiving an incentive?” • Great idea, like it, happy, appreciate it, fine, all right • Accept due to need • Would not complete without the incentive/Expects card for next interview • Compensation for their time • Not enough money • Indifferent- would have completed without incentive • Other: broken card, promised incentive but never received, and/or considered it a bribe.

  19. Chart 5. SIPP Respondent Positive and Negative Responses about Receipt of $40 Incentive Majority of all respondents provided a positive reaction to $40 incentive

  20. Conclusions SIPP andSPD monetary respondent incentive use resulted in improved response and conversion rates on longitudinal demographic surveys. Implementation and operation of the incentive program involved an on-going monitoring and improvement of the control and tracking of incentive use. Regional Office and FLD staff feed back has played an important role in determining the most effective amount and method of incentive dissemination. Respondents view incentives as an effective compensation for their time

  21. Please direct any comments or questions to: Steven W. Perry U.S. Census Bureau FOB #3, Room 3379 Washington, DC 20233 Phone: 301-763-5259 Email: Steven.W.Perry@Census.gov

More Related