Who is still offline? The digital divide and the feasibility of web-only surveys in the UKISER Internal Seminars

The last decade has seen some high-quality surveys adopting web as the primary mode for data collection, a trend that has been accelerated due to the pandemic. To reach segments of the population without internet access, most high-quality surveys employ mixed-mode designs, which pair web surveys with an interviewer-administered mode, such as face-to-face or telephone. However, mixed-mode designs entail higher fixed costs than web-only surveys and may introduce measurement differences that affect data comparability. As internet access has expanded in the UK to cover nearly the entire population and digital literacy levels have improved considerably, a critical question arises: is it now feasible to conduct web-only surveys of the general population without compromising representativeness? The presentation will showcase a work in progress that first examines the profile of internet users and the extent to which they represent the general population. Second, it evaluates the level of representativeness of web surveys and how different groups of internet users contribute to it. The analysis also examines the evolution of these aspects over the past decade. This work uses data from the Innovation Panel and the main study of Understanding Society, the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS).

Presented by:

Pablo Cabrera Álvarez (ISER, University of Essex)

Date & time:

June 11, 2025 12:30 pm - June 11, 2025 1:30 pm

Venue:

2N2.4.16


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