Target population, questionnaire and routing

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The target population of the WageIndicator questionnaire is the labor force, i.e. individuals in paid employment and job seekers. Apart from workers in formal dependent employment it aims to include apprentices, employers, own-account workers, freelancers, workers in family businesses, workers in the informal sector, unemployed workers, individuals who never had a job, job seekers, and retired workers, housewives, school pupils or students with a job on the side. The respondent's employment status is determined in the first survey question: 'Which description matches best your current employment activity?'.

The survey is a multi-lingual, multi-country questionnaire, aiming to collect information on wages and working conditions. The questions are clustered in logical groups, providing a sense of order for respondents and making it easier for them to recall experiences and express their views. Some 100 questions are divided into six sections, as the Table shows. Each section ends with attitudes and opinions regarding the issues addressed. A limited number of questions are obligatory, notably those needed for the calculation of hourly wages, for the salary check, for the weighting of the dataset, or for the routing through the questionnaire. To some extent the questionnaire varies across countries, because it has country-specific questions.

The questionnaire aims to include all groups in the labor force. A questionnaire with questions that primarily address the main group in the labor force will lead to high break-off rates of the small employment status groups. Therefore, all questions have been reviewed as to the extent that they address all groups. Where necessary, parallel questions have been added, addressing the small groups. The unemployed for example have questions about their work in the past tense, the self-employed get different questions about their earnings, students about their current education and trainees about traineeship. Individuals who never had a job follow a very short route, skipping all questions related to the job. The latter group includes individuals who are not attached to the labor market, such as housewives, severely handicapped persons or persons performing voluntary work. Each group has its unique routing through the questionnaire, as the Table shows.

The routing based on employment status groups

Employment status groups	Routing
Employee, whereby for some countries this group is specified into full-time and part-time employees, civil servants, employees with and without a card, and employees in job creation schemes	Employee routing
Unemployed / looking for a job	Employee routing. ALERT 'please complete the questionnaire for your last job'.
Sickness benefit / incapacity for work	Employee routing. ALERT 'please complete the questionnaire for your last job'.
Self-employed, including either paid or unpaid working for family business, own-account worker, freelance, employer, the informal workers	Self-employed routing, particularly for the questions about earnings
Apprentice/ trainee	Apprentice routing, particularly for the questions about education
School pupil, student in full-time education with a job on the side	Student routing, particularly for the questions about education
Never have had a job	Never-had-a-job routing, without questions about earnings and the workplace

Multiple jobholders are identified, and so are the working hours and employment status in their second job. This group gets an alert asking to complete the questionnaire for the main job.