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Thursday 16th July, 11:00 - 12:30 Room: HT-103


Linking survey data and auxiliary data sources: statistical aspects and substantive applications 2

Convenor Ms Chiara Peroni (STATEC )
Coordinator 1Mr Francesco Sarracino (STATEC, HSE-LCSR)
Coordinator 2Mr Wladimir Raymond (STATEC)

Session Details

This session aims to collect contributions from applied research linking survey data with auxiliary data sources. This involves merging various surveys or using information from data collected at different levels, such as macro and individual-level data, administrative data, and other surveys, possibly including those from mobile devices. This permits to address complex research questions, while avoiding the need of long surveys which are costly to run, respond and administer. This strategy, however, poses various methodological challenges concerning the weighting procedure, the computation of standard errors, and the imputation of missing data. These challenges have to be correctly identified and addressed to reach methodologically sound conclusions. We welcome applications to the following topics:

• innovation & social mobility;
• entrepreneurship;
• job and life satisfaction and economic performance;
• migration;

as well as those dealing with methodological issues such as weighting schemes, imputation of missing data and computation of standard errors.

Paper Details

1. Linking web-survey data and information via Facebook
Professor Peter Kriwy (Sociology, University of Technology, Chemnitz, Germany)
Dr Carolin Durst (Business Informatics, University Erlangen Nuremberg, Germany)

We conducted a web-survey to investigate the intention to lose body weight and matched Facebook information of the participants. Drivers of the individual decision to choose weight loss may be moderated by network effects provided by the Facebook community. That is why we combined a web survey with process-generated data provided by the features of individual Facebook accounts. One result is that the number of ego initiated wall post communication boosts the wish of losing body weight of obese Facebook users.


2. Searching unknown territory. How to find new occupational requirements and tasks.
Dr Michael Tiemann (Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training)
Dr Robert Helmrich (Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training)

The German system of vocational education and training is based on occupations. Changing economic structures regularly call for adaptations and changes of these (apprenticeship) occupations. This creates a need for instruments with which developments on the labour market can continuously be monitored and different scenarios can be simulated.
In this proposal we introduce an instrument for monitoring these developments which focusses on occupations, tasks, requirements, qualifications, skills and competences. It links process-generated administrative data and representative survey data.


3. Contextual determinants of attitudes towards emigration. A multilevel approach
Dr Bogdan Voicu (Romanian Academy)
Dr Monica Șerban (Romanian Academy)

While many European countries having large migration outflows, the attitudes towards emigration remain almost unexplored. We discuss a potential quantitative measure, and we investigate the predictors for such attitudes. The empirical evidence came from an original set of items, included in the Romanian version of the World Values Survey, in 2012. Using auxiliary data, such as locality and county level data from the Census, or data from other surveys to show how things are in the respective community, we are able to set up multilevel models to re-embed the attitudes towards emigration in their context.