Since the BHPS and Understanding Society first began, the way we work in the UK has changed.
Understanding Society’s questions on employment were inherited from the BHPS and designed to measure employment at the beginning of the 1990’s. To reflect societal changes in jobs and how people work, Understanding Society undertook the redevelopment of the employment content of the survey. Some of the changes made also incorporated changes in policy, such as regulations around zero-hour contracts, and the questions have been updated to reflect this. We also sought to enrich the range of employment-related data we collect to increase the range of research possible. The questions were redesigned to better cater for those respondents with multiple jobs taking into account non-standard working, including portfolio working, where people have multiple smaller jobs rather than one main job. IP14 (and Wave 13 of the Main Study) is the first instance of changes to job related variables.
To improve the employment-related content, we held a workshop in October 2019 bringing together experts in the field, including substantive and methodological researchers. Presentations were made on the gig economy, precarious labour conditions, and the transformation of the Labour Force Survey. The discussions held throughout the day formed the basis for the redevelopment plan, and were supplemented by communications, reports, and publications relevant to the proposed updates.
Previously questions had focused on the assumption that people have one paid job with a ‘standard’ working week. For Waves 1 to 13, data were collected on current, previous, and secondary jobs from which derived variables were then created such as jbsoc00, jlsoc00 and j2pay.
As from IP14 the questionnaire design now allows up to 16 jobs to be reported, although in IP14 a maximum of four jobs were reported by two respondents. In Wave 13 of the Main Study the maximum number of jobs reported was 10. To accommodate the questionnaire design change and facilitate longitudinal analyses, the new employment variables are released alongside derived variables that have been created to match how the employment questions used to be asked for the ‘main’ job. Some variables are no longer used such as the Second jobs module included in previous waves up to IP13. Some of these variables can potentially be matched to the new variables, but the naming and type of data collected does not entirely map.
The variables on current employment are in the indresp file. For each job the respondent reports they are asked a series of questions about the characteristics of that job. The indresp file includes separate variables for each job, allowing for up to 16 jobs. The variables have the suffix “_x”, referencing the job to which the variable belongs. For example, jbsemp_1 refers to the first job reported, jbsemp_2 to the second job reported, etc. The job-specific variables are documented in Table 2.1 (the prefix “w_” is a placeholder that identifies the wave of the survey; for IP14 the prefix is “n_”).
The variables include new ones containing information that we did not previously collect (e.g. about zero hours contracts and the gig economy), referenced as ‘New’ in Table 2.1. They also include variables that we previously only collected about the main job and now ask of all jobs (e.g. occupation or industry), referenced as ‘UKHLS’ in Table 2.1. The job specific variables include questions from a new ‘Other Work’ module, asked only about jobs that are not the main job (w_owpayu_x, w_owpayug_x, w_owwah_x, w_owmainrv_x).
Additionally, new questions were asked for those seeking jobs in the job search module. There are four sets of variables named julksoc90_Y julksoc00_Y julksoc10_Y and julksoc20_Y. (These questions were adapted from the Understanding Society COVID-19 study) Respondents were asked to report up to three types of jobs they were seeking. Therefore, there are 12 new variables, three variables for each SOC year classification (see Table 2.2).
To facilitate longitudinal analyses with variables collected in prior waves, we have created derived variables that contain the characteristics of the current main job. For example, the variable ZEROHOUR contains the value of zerohour_x that relates to the main job. For respondents who report more than one job, their main job is identified by the variable jbmain. These variables are documented in Table 2.3.
In addition, the Employees, Self-employment, and Non-employment modules contain questions about the main or last job that have not been changed.
The “second job” module has been dropped, as information about all jobs is now collected as part of the “current employment” module (for the variables affected see Table 2.4).
Tables 2.1 to 2.4 document the changes to the employment questions
