Eliciting Illicit Work: Item Count and Randomized Response Technique Put to the Test

• Activity Number: 577
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Antje Kirchner and Ivar Krumpal*+ and Mark Trappmann and Hagen von Hermanni
• Companies: Institute for Employment Research and University of Leipzig and Institute for Employment Research and University of Leipzig
• Keywords: Sensitive Questions ; Item Count Technique ; Randomized Response Technique ; Illicit Work

Abstract

We address an ongoing debate how to assess sensitive topics in telephone surveys. Examining three existing methods and implementing one new method, we developed a module to measure illicit work and tested this in two CATI studies (both conducted in 2010). In an experimental setting, we compare a double-list implementation of the Item Count Technique (ICT) with direct questioning as well as a forced-response implementation of the Randomized Response Technique (RRT) with direct questioning. In the first study (ICT; n=1.603), respondents were selected from the German general population. In the second study (RRT; n=3.211), respondents of two specific populations were sampled from a register: employed persons and those qualifying for basic income support in Germany. Goal of the studies is to evaluate which method elicits more socially undesirable answers in the context of illicit work and moonlighting, particularly with regard to the specific mode of data collection and different subpopulations. Furthermore, we developed a novel method which can be applied to the measurement of sensitive metric variables. This method requires no randomizer and can be easily administered in CATI surveys.