The questionnaire for the 2005 European Working Conditions Survey was developed with a view to:
- maintaining the balance between the different blocks of questions
- retaining core 'trend' questions to ensure continuity
- identifying new and emerging areas of interest falling within the scope of the survey
This is a crucial activity in the survey preparatory phase as it impacts on the quality of the results.
The questionnaire includes questions on age, gender, marital status, activities at home, country, sector and company size as well as questions on the employment situation (working time, work organisation, job demands, working with a computer, etc.).
The questionnaire was developed and reviewed by the Foundation’s then Working Conditions team in close cooperation with an expert questionnaire development group. The expert group included members of the Foundation’s Governing Board, representatives of the European Social Partners, other EU bodies (EU Commission, Eurostat, European Agency for Safety and Health at Work), international organisations (OECD, ILO), national statistical institutes as well as leading European experts in the field. This expert group met three times during the preparation phase.
Interviews are conducted in the national languages of each country. For the 2005 survey, the questionnaire was translated into 26 different languages and 15 language variants. The translations were done in accordance with current good practices in multilingual translation of international survey questionnaires.