Best Practice Recommendations for Measuring International Demographics
A series of recommendations on demographic standards to address inconsistencies that create barriers and inefficiencies in the exchange and evaluation of international data.
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Welcome to the new demographics series
The process of describing and defining populations is currently very varied. Methods differ from one research company to the next, measures go quickly out of data, and research respondents don’t always tell researchers the truth or give a proper answer to some demographic questions, resulting in misrepresentation and poor-quality data.
ESOMAR, through its Professional Standards Committee, is developing a series of recommendations on demographic standards to address inconsistencies that create barriers and inefficiencies in the exchange and evaluation of international data.
Currently in consultation:
Upcoming recommendations:
Income measurement
Education Level measures by country and inclusive method of assessing education levels
Job and Industry Definitions
Global Wealth range/measures
Social Class measurement
Learn more about the project in the interview with Judith Passingham and Jon Puleston.
Who's working on it?
An expert project team from a range of international suppliers is working together to review best practices to describe demographic questions in as globally consistent a way as possible to develop best practice recommendations for key geographies worldwide. Growing international cross-market research levels will help researchers and clients everywhere to improve research standards. The team is chaired by Judith Passingham, chair of ESOMAR’s Professional Standards Committee and Jon Puleston of Kantar, a member of the Standards Committee.
The recommendations, founded on evidence-based best practices, are designed to improve quality standards and facilitate multi-country research projects and surveys. The proposals will help to produce more meaningful global/regional results that are more comparable from one project/region to another. All recommendations are sent to a Client Sounding Board for review and buy-in.
The Project Team
Recommendations have been prepared by a dedicated Project Team and are validated by the ESOMAR Professional Standards Committee and a Client Sounding Board.
The Co-Chairs
Judith Passingham
ESOMAR Committee Member, Chair of the Professional Standards Committee at ESOMARJudith Passingham has worked in the Market Research industry for over 35 years, in many different roles from General Management, Client Account Leadership, Service Development, to Sales and Operations – on a Global and European basis.
She started her career at the British Market Research Bureau working on the TGI and various media measurements, then working at AGB, subsequently TNS where she ran the UK and then global panel division as CEO of ‘Worldpanel ‘ and as Joint CEO of Europanel – a joint venture between TNS and GFK.
Judith was appointed CEO of TNS Europe and then following the WPP acquisition of TNS oversaw the integration of RI and TNS in Northern and Eastern Europe. In 2014 Judith joined Ipsos to run its Access Panel services where she drove service integration into one global entity, launched device agnostic interviewing and programmatic sampling.
In 2016 she took on responsibility for Ipsos’s Operational capability. She retired in 2019 and volunteers for Pilotlight and for the Maple Lodge Nature Reserve. In January 2020 she was appointed as Chair of the Professional Standards Committee for ESOMAR.
Jon Puleston
ESOMAR Committee Member, Vice-President Innovation Profiles Division at KantarJon Puleston serves as Vice President of Innovation for Kantar's Profiles Division. In this role, he heads QuestionArts, an international team specializing in the design of surveys and the development of specialist tools and technology for conducting research in the online and mobile arena. Additionally, he serves as a consultant on survey design best practice to companies around the world.
Over the last few years he and his team have won multiple awards for their ground breaking research on research exploring survey design methodology and in particular for their work in the field of gamification of research, survey optimization and prediction science.
Project Team Members
Otto Hellwig, Bilendi
Tre Rials, CINT (previously Lucid)
Katy Mallios, CINT (previously Lucid)
Sonali Kaushal, CINT
Jimmy Snyder, CINT
Nancy Brigham, Dynata
Pete Cape, Dynata
Ankita Sethi, Gartner
Sandy Casey, Innovate MR
Cecile Carre, Ipsos
Leah McTiernan, Ipsos
Sara Wilkinson, Ipsos
Eva Wittmann, Ipsos
Trixie Cartwright, Ipsos
Chris Stevens, Kantar
Deborah Fox, Kantar
Joan Garriga, Netquest
Salvador Masdeu, Netquest
Jennifer Honegger, Netquest
Kay Ricci, Nielsen
Marie Hense, Toluna
Mathilde Lelievre, Toluna
Susan Vidler, Toluna
ESOMAR Team
Kathy Joe, ESOMAR
Jules van Vlokhoven, ESOMAR
The Client Sounding Board
Richa Bhalotia, Amazon
Niharika Roopsingh, Amazon
Kevin Cowan, BBC
Begonia Fiafan, Coca-Cola Latam
Nicola Dean, Colgate Palmolive
Aileen Cabelly, Colgate Palmolive
Rachael Popoola, Diageo
Muhamad Masood Ali Khan, Etisalat
Mario Callegaro, Google
Barry Jennings, Microsoft
Amy Lee, previously Mondalez
Naoki Takahashi, Nissan Japan/Global
Vinay Ahuja, P&G Europe Analytics and Insights
Fenny Leautier, Philips
Manish Makhijani, previously Unilever
If you work in a client company and want to participate in this Sounding Board, please contact professional.standards@esomar.org.