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Using the government data in employment

research

Vanessa HigginsCCSR

University of Manchester

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Why study employment and the labour market?

• Important for development of social and economic policies

• Monitoring age, gender, ethnicity over decades has helped equal opportunity policies

• New ways of working: flexible working hours, temporary contracts

• Compare UK to other countries

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Harmonisation

• Wide range of govt surveys– designed at different times, to meet different needs

and commissioned by different departments

• Harmonisation 1996– uses common classifications, definitions and

standards for social survey questions

– improves comparability between social stats

– recommend that where a topic is covered, harmonised questions included wherever possible

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Employment-related harmonised questions

• economic status:– employed, unemployed, economically inactive

• selected job details– hours worked, time in present job, length of time since

last did paid work

• industry, occupation & socio-economic classifications– industry and occupation, employed/self-employed,

supervisory responsibility, size of establishment

• others– income, social security benefits, educational

attainment, demographic variables such as ethnicity, age.

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ILO definition

• ILO employment: those in paid work in the last week either as an employee or self-employed and those on a government-supported training scheme (includes those who are temporarily away from a job and those who do unpaid work for a family business).

• ILO unemployment: those not in employment but available to start within two weeks, and have either looked for work in the last 4 weeks or waiting to start a new job.

• Economically active: ILO employed + unemployed

• Economically inactive: neither ILO employed or unemployed e.g. retired

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The large-scale government surveys

• General Household Survey• Labour Force Survey• Health Survey for England/Wales/Scotland • Family Expenditure Survey• British Crime Survey• Family Resources Survey • National Food Survey/Expenditure and Food

Survey • ONS Omnibus Survey • Survey of English Housing • British Social Attitudes• National Travel Survey• Time Use Survey

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Choosing a survey

• Extent of questions of employment

• Other topics

• Measurement over time

• Geography

• When was ILO introduced?

• Respondents – whole household, children?

• Sample size

• Survey methodology – proxies, telephone

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Examples

• Violence at work – British Crime Survey

• Gender differences in income from work, 1993-2003

– Pay: Labour Force Survey General Household Survey, Survey English Housing, Family Resource Survey, Time Use Survey, EFS/FES/NFS.

– Time element (1993-2003): • TUS (2000)

• EFS/FES/NFS (EFS consistency?).

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Examples (continued)

– 4 surveys left: GHS, LFS, FRS, SEH

– Other factors:

• SEH: 1 person. No info about income of other members. Content mainly housing-related.

• Could use GHS, LFS or FRS – decide which content most useful

– employment, – other income, – other topics: number of children,

caring responsibilities, family, education, health etc.

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Two surveys widely used for employment and labour market research

– Labour Force Survey

– General Household Survey

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Labour Force Survey (LFS)

• UK required by EU regulation to carry out an annual LFS.

• Comprehensive source of info about all aspects of the labour market

• Assists many govt departments in the framing and monitoring of social and economic policy

• Use 1992 onwards – major methodological changes. Quarterly survey, address interviewed five waves at 3 monthly intervals

• Panel element allows user to follow employment over the year

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LFS (continued)

• Changes between quarters and over years– not all topics available each year and within each

quarter e.g pay 1992 and only asked in 2 quarters.

• Topics in 2000 LFS include:– All harmonised employment questions– Many other employment topics e.g:

• govt training schemes• main job – private/public sector, permanent/temp,

Shift work, PAYE scheme• redundancy & sickness, • home workers• travel to work• union representation• looking for work• work history• benefits, education, training,

health, income

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General Household Survey (GHS)

• Assists many govt depts in the framing and monitoring of social policy.

• Cross-sectional survey, not followed up, so can’t look at employment patterns over the year, just a snapshot.

• All harmonised employment questions:– economic status– selected job details – hours worked etc– industry/occupation

• Income incl. from work• Benefits• Pensions• Educational attainment• Family information

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LFS v GHSLFS GHS

Detailed labour market questions

More detail on other topics

Household, individual and family level data

+ health data for children

1992 onwards 1971 onwards (1997 & 1999 breaks)

NHS accommodation and young people living away from home

120,000 – use for sub-sample analyses e.g ethnic minorities

21,000

Small sampling errors (“in employment” 0.20, Spring 1999)Stratified sample

Small sampling errors (“in employment” 0.77, 2001)Stratified and clustered sample

Proxies 30% Proxies 5%

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Resources/events• Introductory user guide – ongoing updates

• LFS Teaching Dataset – available shortly

• STATA guide – uses LFS teaching dataset

• ONS docs

• Labour Force Survey User Group Meeting– Tuesday 21st October, RSS, London

• JISCmail list: – ARCHIVE-LMSUG@JISCMAIL.AC.UK

• Proceedings of LMSUG meeting May: Newsletter http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/join/

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Other non-ESDS Government sources

• Simply want a figure: ONS website - Labour Market Trends, Social Trends, Workforce Jobs Quarterly Surveys, NOMIS,

• NOMIS: New Earnings Survey, Annual Business Enquiry, Claimant Count and Jobcentre Vacancies

• Census Aggregate Statistics & SARs - Manchester

• Workplace Employee Relations Survey – NatCen, UKDA

• ESDS Longitudinal – BHPS etc, UKDA

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Summary

• Harmonised questions• ILO definition• Most surveys ask employment

questions• Differences between surveys• LFS and GHS widely used• Resources/events• Other sources