Journal Article

Survey design and the analysis of satisfaction

Authors

Publication date

2011

Summary

We analyze the effect of survey design on reported job satisfaction by exploiting two quasi-experiments in the British Household Panel Survey: a change in question design and parallel use of different interview modes. We show that apparently minor differences in survey design lead to substantial biases in econometric results, particularly on gender differences. The common empirical finding that women care less about wages and prefer to work fewer hours than men appears largely an artifact of survey design rather than a true behavioral difference.

Published in

Review of Economics and Statistics

Volume and page numbers

93 , 1087 -1093

DOI

http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/REST_a_00202

ISSN

16

Links

http://serlib0.essex.ac.uk/record=b1588265~S5

Notes

Albert Sloman Library Periodicals *restricted to Univ. Essex registered users*; Is referenced by OECD (2013) ‘Methodological considerations in the measurement of subjective well-being’ in OECD ’OECD Guidelines on Measuring Subjective Well-being’. Paris: OECD Publishing. Ch.2: 61-138

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