The measurement of low pay in the UK labour force survey
The measurement of low pay in the UK labour force survey
Consideration of the National Minimum Wage requires estimates of the distribution of hourly pay. The UK Labour Force Survey (LFS) is a key source of such estimates. The approach most frequently adopted by researchers has been to measure hourly earnings from several questions on pay and hours. The Office for National Statistics is now applying a new approach, based on an alternative more direct measurement introduced in March 1999.
These two measures do not produce identical values and this paper investigates sources of discrepancies and concludes that the new variable is more accurate. The difficulty with using the new variable is that it is only available on a subset of respondents. An approach is developed in which missing values of the new variable are replaced by imputed values. The assumptions underlying this imputation approach and results of applying it to LFS data are presented. The relation to weighting approaches is also discussed.
distribution function, hourly pay, imputation, measurement error, missing data, weighting
Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute, University of Southampton
Skinner, Chris
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Stuttard, Nigel
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Beissel-Durrant, Gabriele
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Jenkins, James
26425655-d69a-40eb-9cb3-5cae6c1d3312
2003
Skinner, Chris
dec5ef40-49ef-492a-8a1d-eb8c6315b8ce
Stuttard, Nigel
e7f01039-3629-41f7-a18f-b4f72462b7bf
Beissel-Durrant, Gabriele
9630d22e-5f26-4407-bcfd-9674a03b4ee1
Jenkins, James
26425655-d69a-40eb-9cb3-5cae6c1d3312
Skinner, Chris, Stuttard, Nigel, Beissel-Durrant, Gabriele and Jenkins, James
(2003)
The measurement of low pay in the UK labour force survey
(S3RI Methodology Working Papers, M03/04)
Southampton, UK.
Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute, University of Southampton
41pp.
Record type:
Monograph
(Working Paper)
Abstract
Consideration of the National Minimum Wage requires estimates of the distribution of hourly pay. The UK Labour Force Survey (LFS) is a key source of such estimates. The approach most frequently adopted by researchers has been to measure hourly earnings from several questions on pay and hours. The Office for National Statistics is now applying a new approach, based on an alternative more direct measurement introduced in March 1999.
These two measures do not produce identical values and this paper investigates sources of discrepancies and concludes that the new variable is more accurate. The difficulty with using the new variable is that it is only available on a subset of respondents. An approach is developed in which missing values of the new variable are replaced by imputed values. The assumptions underlying this imputation approach and results of applying it to LFS data are presented. The relation to weighting approaches is also discussed.
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7793-01.pdf
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More information
Published date: 2003
Additional Information:
Also available in Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 64, pp. 653-676, August 2002
Keywords:
distribution function, hourly pay, imputation, measurement error, missing data, weighting
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 7793
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/7793
PURE UUID: 4117ae74-2d05-4f0c-ade0-2e97df1b7d95
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Date deposited: 28 Jun 2006
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 04:48
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Contributors
Author:
Chris Skinner
Author:
Nigel Stuttard
Author:
Gabriele Beissel-Durrant
Author:
James Jenkins
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