Exploring the Relationship Between Burden Factors and Survey Response

• Activity Number: 416 - Nonresponse Errors and Fixes
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, July 30, 2019 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Survey Research Methods Section
• Author(s): Morgan Earp* and Brandon Kopp and John Dixon
• Companies: Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Keywords: Respondent Burden; Structural Equation Modeling; Survey Response; Current Population Survey

Abstract

This paper explores the potential for using proxy measures of Bradburn’s four burden factors and participant interest, and explores their relationship with response across several surveys varying in topic, length, and sensitivity. The Current Population Survey (CPS) administers a variety of supplemental surveys to a select subpopulation of CPS respondents almost every month. Using CPS respondent data and paradata, we identified the following proxy measures of burden: 1) length (interview type and survey duration); 2) effort (number of adults, self/proxy reporting); 3) stress (income, ethnicity, marital status, and education refusal indicators); 4) frequency (the number of supplemental surveys the participant was previously sampled for); and 5) interest (employment status, disability status, home ownership, presence of children, and education level). Our paper examines the relationship between these five burden factors and survey response using a structural equation model and tests for model invariance across the various supplements to determine if the relationship between burden factors and response varies (in strength or direction) by survey topic.