European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) (English Version)

Online Probing & Cognitive Interviews
Only those respondents who answered “Don’t know” on Q7 received question Q8a. Respondents who answered “yes” were defined as “employees” and accordingly received the questions for employees throughout the rest of the survey.

English version:

Are you paid a salary or a wage by an employer?

German version:

Erhalten Sie Lohn oder Gehalt von einem Arbeitgeber?

English version:
yes
no
Don't know
Refusal

German version:
ja
nein
Weiß nicht
Verweigert

Question: Depending on changes made to Q7, Q8a could be omitted.
Answer categories: No changes recommended.

Cognitive Techniques:

Category Selection Probing, Specific Probing, Comprehension Probing. (CI)

Question 8a is only asked to respondents who cannot identify themselves as employed or self-employed in question 7. For these respondents, the aim of probing was to examine their understanding of the terms “salary or wage”, or whether they use other words to describe payment. Special attention is paid to atypical monetary compensation and how it is categorized, i.e. contract work, freelance contracts with a salary over a certain time, little or unpaid work such as interns.
In Germany and Poland, only one respondent was asked this question, respectively. Respondent DE03 had identified as both employed and self-employed during recruitment. However, in the interview situation, he described himself as working, but mainly as a caretaker for his parents. In this question, he describes his income as a mixture of unemployment money, but also regular payments by his parents for the caretaking (which are, however, not relevant for the tax declaration and cannot be defined as a salary), and irregular payments for freelance work, as a photographer, gardener, and telephone interviewer. He decides to answer this question with “no”. Thus, for routing purposes, he remains self-employed in the pretest.
Respondent PL04 refused to answer Q7 because she perceived the term “employee/ hired worker” as having a negative connotation. In Q8a she answered that she receives a salary and it becomes clear that her working status is employed. This respondent did not answer Q7 for ideological reasons and should not have received Q8a as there is no uncertainty regarding her employment status.
None of the Polish respondents working on order contract was asked Q8a, as they all decided on a category in Q7. Although this is a small case number, it is an indication that problems regarding the classification into employed and self-employed mainly arise in Q7 and, for a large part of the sample, cannot be corrected in Q8a, as respondents make a decision in Q7.

Job and career/ Job situation & professional activity

Salary/wage