Recommendations for Measuring International Demographics: Working Status
In many cultures, it is deemed socially desirable to be at work rather than not, which tends to favour the use of work rather than non-working codes. There is strong evidence that order bias may play a role here. An accurate question needs to be multi-coded and needs to mitigate social desirability bias by masking its intention.
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Working Status: The new ESOMAR Demographics Best Practice Recommendations for multi-country work
ESOMAR’s Professional Standards Committee is working with an expert project team to develop a series of recommendations on demographic standards to address inconsistencies that create barriers and inefficiencies in the exchange and evaluation of international data. The evidence-based best-practice proposals aim to raise data quality standards to provide more meaningful results that are comparable from one project/region to another.
Working status, as traditionally defined by researchers, is becoming obsolete in light of contemporary global trends. In today's world, retired individuals often continue to work, and digital transformation has revolutionised the nature of work itself. Recognising these changes, the Demographic Working Group proposes an approach that recognises how this demographic is being used and addresses known problems, such as participants favouring socially desirable responses, ordering effects, and limited response options. The expanded best practice question structure facilitates different aggregations to cover employment status and proxy time availability in different ways.
Who's working on it?
An introduction to the expert project teamAn expert project team from a range of international suppliers has reviewed best practice to describe demographic questions in as globally consistent a way as possible to develop a best practice recommendation for key geographies worldwide. The proposal has been validated by ESOMAR’s Professional Standards Committee.
The recommendation was sent to a Client Sounding Board from global companies such as Amazon, the BBC, Coca-Cola, Colgate Palmolive, Diageo, Etisalat, Google, Microsoft, Mondalez China, Nissan, P&G and Unilever for comment. With the Board’s help, we have fine-tuned the proposal to speed up adoption, and some clients will be applying or trialling the recommendation in their international work.
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.
Next up, the team will tackle the working status questions with income and education level measures also on the list.
The Project Team
The Co-Chairs
Judith Passingham, Chair of ESOMAR's Professional Standards Committee
Jon Puleston, Kantar, Member of ESOMAR's Professional Standards Committee
The 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 would like to participate in this Sounding Board, please contact professional.standards@esomar.org.