European Working Conditions Survey 2024

English version 1 & 2:

How often does your main paid job involve the following?

German version 1 & 2:

Wie oft schließt Ihr Hauptberuf Folgendes ein?

English version 1:
Tiring or painful positions [Always/Often/Sometimes/Rarely/Never]
Lifting or moving people [Always/Often/Sometimes/Rarely/Never]
Carrying or moving heavy loads [Always/Often/Sometimes/Rarely/Never]
Sitting [Always/Often/Sometimes/Rarely/Never]

English version 2:
Tiring or painful positions [All of the time/Almost all of the time/Around ¾ of the time/Around half of the time/Around ¼ of the time/Almost never/Never]
Lifting or moving people [All of the time/Almost all of the time/Around ¾ of the time/Around half of the time/Around ¼ of the time/Almost never/Never]
Carrying or moving heavy loads [All of the time/Almost all of the time/Around ¾ of the time/Around half of the time/Around ¼ of the time/Almost never/Never]
Sitting [All of the time/Almost all of the time/Around ¾ of the time/Around half of the time/Around ¼ of the time/Almost never/Never]

German version 1:
Schmerzhafte oder ermüdende Körperhaltungen [Immer/Oft/Manchmal/Selten/Nie]
Tragen oder Bewegen von Personen [Immer/Oft/Manchmal/Selten/Nie]
Tragen oder Bewegen schwerer Lasten [Immer/Oft/Manchmal/Selten/Nie]
Sitzen [Immer/Oft/Manchmal/Selten/Nie]

German version 2:
Schmerzhafte oder ermüdende Körperhaltungen [Die ganze Zeit/Fast die ganze Zeit/Ungefähr drei Viertel der Zeit/Ungefähr die Hälfte der Zeit/Ungefähr ein Viertel der Zeit/Fast nie/Nie]
Tragen oder Bewegen von Personen [Die ganze Zeit/Fast die ganze Zeit/Ungefähr drei Viertel der Zeit/Ungefähr die Hälfte der Zeit/Ungefähr ein Viertel der Zeit/Fast nie/Nie]
Tragen oder Bewegen schwerer Lasten [Die ganze Zeit/Fast die ganze Zeit/Ungefähr drei Viertel der Zeit/Ungefähr die Hälfte der Zeit/Ungefähr ein Viertel der Zeit/Fast nie/Nie]
Sitzen [Die ganze Zeit/Fast die ganze Zeit/Ungefähr drei Viertel der Zeit/Ungefähr die Hälfte der Zeit/Ungefähr ein Viertel der Zeit/Fast nie/Nie]

We recommend using the five-point-scale that was implemented in the course of the adaptation, both because it is shorter and because it can be implemented consistently across most of the EWCS questionnaire (see also Q49)

Cognitive Techniques:

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Findings Web Probing:

Respondents were randomly assigned to either question version 1 or question version 2.

For the first item “tiring or painful positions”, there was a significant difference in response behaviour between countries for question version 1, with Polish respondents being much less likely to report that this “never” applies to their job (see Table 45; χ2(8,396) = 40.311, p < .001). There were no significant differences between countries for any of the other items in either question version.

Across all four items, a similar share of respondents chose the extreme scale points (“always” or “all of the time”, and “never”), with the exception of Polish respondents in their answers to the first item. For the first item, 3% (n = 5) of the Polish respondents in question version 1 answered that they “never” work in “tiring or painful positions”, while 19% (n = 23) answered “never” in question version 2.

Which response options in the two scales corresponded to each other?

From a logical and linguistic point of view, the end points of the scale should approximately correspond to each other (“Always” and “All of the time”, as well as “Never”), as should the second-lowest frequency (“Rarely” and “Almost never”). The response option “Often” from the 5-point scale should encompass the response options “Almost all of the time” and “Around ¾ of the time” from the seven-point scale, while the response option “Sometimes” should encompass the response options “Around half of the time” and “Around ¼ of the time” (see Table 49).

The response distributions corresponded well to each other, with the exception of the last item Q30D “Sitting” (see Table 50). For the final item, the upper part of the scale diverged, with respondents being considerably more likely to indicate “Always” on the five-point-scale than “All of the time” on the seven-point scale. However, even in the case of the final item, the lower half of the scale with the categories “Rarely“, “Almost never” and “Never” corresponded very well.

Summary:

• Based on the response distributions, both the five-point and seven-point scales corresponded well to each other, indicating that both can be used to capture the constructs they measure.
• Only for the item Q30D “Sitting” did the upper scale half diverge, with respondents reporting a higher frequency of sitting in the five-point scale.

Job and career/ Workload & stress

Risks