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. 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.
Prior to Wave 13, questions had focused on the assumption that people have one paid job with a ‘standard’ working week. For Waves 1 to 12, data were collected on current main job and second job. From Wave 13, the questionnaire design allows up to 16 jobs to be reported (please note that the maximum number of jobs reported in Wave 13 was 10) and the “Second jobs” module is no longer asked. Please refer to the Wave 13 questionnaire for these questions.
As always, 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 which are also available in indresp. So, there is a separate set of variables for each job. The variables have the suffix “_X”, referencing the job to which the variable belongs. For example, jbterm_1 refers to the first job reported, jbterm_2 to the second job reported, etc. The job-specific variables are documented in Table 6.1 below (the prefix “w_” is a placeholder that identifies the wave of the survey). Table 6.1 also has new variables containing information that we did not previously collect (e.g., about zero hours contracts and the gig economy), referenced as ‘New’, and variables that we previously only collected about the ‘main’ job and now ask of all jobs (e.g., occupation or industry), referenced as ‘UKHLS’.
The variable, multijobs, records the number of jobs reported, and jbmain records which of the jobs they reported is their main job. To facilitate longitudinal analyses with variables collected in prior waves, we have created derived variables that contain the characteristics of the current ‘main’ job and have the same names as in previous waves. For example, if the respondent reported the third job as their main job, so jbmain = 3, then the variable jbsoc10_cc contains the value of jbsoc10_3_cc. These variables are documented in Table 6.2 below. Note at Wave 14 the main current job occupation variables (jbsoc00, m_jbsoc10) were revised to achieve consistent measurement across waves (see Revisions to the main current job occupation in Wave 13).
Please note, that there are some questions that are still asked about the main job (which is either the only job reported or if more than one job then the job chosen as the main job in jbmain). These questions are in the module “Employees_w13”. The “Universe” for these questions confirms this routing rule:
If ((CURRENTEMPLOYMENT.MULTIJOBS = 1 & CURRENTEMPLOYMENT.JBSEMP) = 1 | JOBCODE Selected At CURRENTEMPLOYMENT.JBMAIN Is CURRENTEMPLOYMENT.JBSEMP = 1) // Has one job and is an employee OR Has more than 1 jobs and is an employee in the main job
This module includes variables such as jbmngr, jbsize, jbsect, jbsectpub, jbhrs, jbot, paygl and so on.
The “second job” module was dropped, as information about all jobs is now collected as part of the “current employment” module (for the variables affected see Table 6.3 below). Instead, a new module about the other jobs, otherjobs_w13, was included. This included the questions listed in Table 6.4 below, and the suffix _X showed which job number the variable was referring to, where X ranged from 1 to 10 in Wave 13. Respondents who reported more than one job (multijobs>1), were asked these questions only for the jobs that were NOT their main job. For example, if someone reported two jobs and their second job as the main job, then the variables in this module that referred to the first job will have valid values, and the variables referring to all other jobs will be -8.
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 COVID-19 study) Respondents were able to input up to three jobs they were seeking. Therefore, there were 12 new variables for each SOC year classification. (See Table 6.5 below)
Finally, the variables in the “non-employment” module, that is asked of respondents who are not currently in work, were not changed (see Table 6.6 below for a list of these variables).
Tables 6.1 to 6.6 document the changes to the employment questions
