Labour Force Survey – April 2018 Metadata

Citation

Citation   References

1. 1. 1. Questionnaire(s)
         1. Household
         2. Person
      2. Manual(s)
         1. CAPI Manual
         2. Training Manual
      3. Scope - Summary Data Description
      4. Methodology - Data Collection and Processing
      5. Sampling
      6. Data Collection
      7. Accessibility

Overview 

Type Labour Force Survey April 2018

Version Production Date: 2018-04-08 

Time Period(s) 2018

Countries Belize 

Geographic Coverage National coverage 

Unit of Analysis Household

Primary Investigator(s) Statistical Institute of Belize, SIB 

Other Producer(s) None

Funding Agency/ies  

Government of Belize, Main funder 

Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB)

Abstract

The first Labour Force Survey that was conducted in Belize was administered by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) in 1993. Every year since then, labour force data has been collected. Although two rounds of the survey were conducted initially, financial constraints led to a reduction in the frequency with which it was done. Thus, the survey has been conducted around April, the time of the year when employment in Belize is at its highest.

Currently, a labour force survey is conducted twice a year, once in April and then in September.  Generally, the concepts that have been utilized in the survey are in accordance with guidelines as determined by the International Labour Office (ILO) and so are comparable to those used internationally.

Scope: 

Countries                         Belize

Geographic Coverage     Belize

Unit of Analysis               Household

Kind of Data                    Sample survey data [ssd]

Universe

The survey covered all de jure household members (usual residents), all women, men and children resident in the household.

 Added Modules              None

Questionnaires

Two sets of questionnaires were used in the survey: 1) a household questionnaire which was used to collect information on all de jure household members (usual residents), the household, and the dwelling; 2) an individual questionnaire administered in each household to all persons 14 years and older. The questionnaires included the following modules:

The Household Questionnaire included the following modules:

• Household Information Panel
• Household Listing Form
• Education

The Individual Person Questionnaire included the following areas:

• Individual Information Panel
• Training
• Employment
• Occupation
• Under employment

Study Parameters

Coverage of Study: 

About 5 percent of the sample frame, or 2,800 households, was included in the April 2018 LFS. Randomly sampled households were representative of urban and rural areas, including the cayes. The breakdown translates to a total of 112 clusters that were selected with 25 households within each cluster. Of the 112 clusters, 47 were urban areas, while 65 were rural areas.

In all, 2,264 households were successfully interviewed, producing a response rate of 93.3 percent. Note that final result codes with vacant dwellings, vacant lots, address not found, building under construction and other were excluded from the calculation of the response rate. Data was captured for a total of 5,958 persons 14 years and over: 2,904 men and 3,054 females.  Corozal district registered the highest response rate at 96.9 percent followed by Toledo district at 96.7 percent, while Belize district recorded the lowest at 87.4 percent.

Scope of Study:

Six trained field teams were responsible for conducting face to face interviews using Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) software capturing data digitally for a duration of four (4) weeks from April 8^th to May 5^th.  The CAPI software was first introduced in April 2016, making data processing of household questionnaires more automated.  Five coders/editors plus a supervisor thoroughly checked and coded each questionnaire after completion from the interviewers in the field. Final checks were performed by headquarter personnel for data quality. Needless to say, international standards were adhered to for coding and comparability purposes. The LFS captured demographic information of all persons in the household, with more in-depth questions for persons 14 years and over in the economic activity module.

Population under study:

The LFS April 2018 covers different aspects of the labour market, such as the labour force and the persons not in the labour force, the size and structure of Belize’s labour force, the hours usually worked, the demand for employment, the type of employment by sector and occupation, and other characteristics of the working age population who are employed, unemployed, or not in the labour force. The population is closely studied by sex, age, district, area, ethnic group and educational level.

Though the LFS captures information on the population as a whole, it concentrates on persons aged 14 years and over who are either in the labour force or not in the labour force. The labour force consists of persons contributing or willing and available to contribute to the production of goods and services. In other words, it is comprised of persons not working, wanting and available to work (i.e. the unemployed), and persons involved in some type of economic activity for at least one hour during the reference week (the employed). Among employed population are those persons who are self-employed (employers or own-account workers), persons working for the government, NGOs or a private institution or establishment, persons working for international organizations, and unpaid family workers. Persons who were temporarily absent from work due to vacation, maternity/paternity leave, illness, bad weather, or personal responsibilities are also classified to be working. Those persons who usually work less than 35 hours per week are classified as underemployed. Persons not in the labour force include persons who did not work, did not want to work, and were not available to work, for instance, housewives, full-time students, retirees, and the disabled who cannot work.

Definitions 

Household

A household consists of one or more persons living together i.e. sleeping most nights of a week AND sharing at least one daily meal.  It is possible for a household to consist of just one person, or of more than one family, as long as they share living arrangements. A boarder or a domestic servant who sleeps in most nights of the week is a member of the household.  A group of unrelated persons living together also constitutes a household.

Working Age population

This refers to all those persons aged 14 years and over.

 

Labour Force

The labour force is comprised of all those persons aged 14 years and over who were engaged in any form of economic activity, for at least one hour, during the survey week or who were willing and able to be engaged in producing economic goods and services. Also included would be all those persons who were temporarily absent from work during the survey week.  Hence, the labour force is made up of all those persons who either had jobs (the Employed), or those who did not have jobs but were willing and able to work (the Unemployed).

Employed Labour Force

The employed population comprises all those persons who worked for at least one hour during the survey week together with all those persons who had jobs but were not working during the survey week.  The following are considered as having worked:

1. All persons who run their own business regardless of the size of the enterprise.
2. All persons who receive a salary, wage or some kind of payment in exchange for their labour.
3. Unpaid helpers such as trainees and apprentices, family workers on commercial farms or other enterprises.
4. All persons engaged in agricultural production whether for own use or for sale.
5. All persons who worked at home such as sewing for someone outside the household, preparation of food for sale, sale of nuts, fruits, lottery tickets, etc.

The following are considered as NOT having worked:

1. All persons engaged in household duties done around the house.
2. All persons engaged in odd jobs such as gardening, cutting lawn, etc. done around the home.
3. All persons engaged in voluntary work for service organizations such as Boys Scouts, Youth Groups, etc.

Persons who worked for less than one hour during the survey week and who had no jobs are excluded from this category.

Unemployed Labour Force

The unemployed labour force refers to all those persons who, during the survey week, were (a) without work and (b) currently available for work.

Labour Force Participation Rate

Labour Force Participation Rate refers to the ratio of the total labour force over the total Non-Institutional population aged 14 years and over, i.e.

Labour Force Participation Rate = 100 x  Labour Force Population/Working Age Population

The participation rate reflects the proportion of the working age population that is willing to dedicate part of its time to economic activity.

Unemployment Rate

Unemployment Rate = 100 x Unemployed Population/(Employed Population+Unemployed Population)

Unemployment rate refers to the ratio of the unemployed over the total labour force, i.e. the percentage of the labour force that is unemployed.

Job Seeking Rate

Job Seekers are those unemployed persons who actively sought employment within the two months prior to the survey.  The Job Seeking rate refers to the ratio of the total number of job seekers over the total labour force, i.e.

Job Seeking Rate = 100 x Job Seekers/Labour Force

Persons Not in the Labour Force

This category includes all those persons aged 14 years and over who are neither employed nor unemployed.  These persons are also referred to as the Economically Inactive Population, and they include all persons who explicitly stated that they did not want work, full-time students, persons engaged in Home Duties, the Retired etc.  The difference between the figure for the Working-Age Population and the figure for the Labour Force gives the figure for the Persons Not in the Labour Force.

Sample Size Calculation Methodology

The LFS is based on a stratified multi-stage design. Each district was treated as an independent domain, which was then stratified into urban/rural areas. At the first stage, smaller geographic regions or clusters were selected. The indicator used to determine the first stage sample size was the “female labour force participation rate” derived from the September 2017 LFS with a margin of error less than 20 percent for all districts. The sample size was calculated using the following formula:

n^H = ( z^2* r (1-r)*deff*nrr)/[(e r)]^2 pñ)

where n^H is the number of households required.  A description of the parameters as well as the values used for the calculation is provided in Table 1.

Table 1 First Stage Sample Size Calculation

Parameters	Description of Parameters	Output Results
r	Female Labour Force Participation rate	0.5072
e	Relative margin of error	0.0597
Confidence (z): 95%	There is a 95% probability that the confidence interval will contain the true population mean	1.96 ((1.96)2 is approximated to 4)
Design effect (deff)	The ratio of the actual variance to the variance expected with simple random sample	3
p	Females within the Working Age Population (Sub Population)	130,475
nrr	A percentage of non-responses is added to the sample. This is derived from the previous LFS round.	1.06
n ̃	Average household size (Derived from previous labour force survey)	3.7
Total		2,800

The first stage determined that 18 clusters would be selected from the following districts: Corozal, Orange Walk, Belize and Cayo and 20 clusters from Stann Creek and Toledo. To allocate the number of clusters for each Urban/Rural area, the square root N proportional method was used. The method consists in first taking the square root of the urban and rural population for each district, summing them up and then assigning a proportion of the 18 or 20 clusters to each stratum (Urban/Rural) according to the importance of the square root of the population in the urban or rural area of the district. Table 2 below shows the distribution of clusters by district and stratum.

Table 2 Sample Size by district

	Corozal	Orange Walk	Belize	Cayo	Stann Creek	Toledo	Total
No. of Clusters	18	18	18	18	20	20	112
Urban	7	7	11	9	7	6	47
Rural	11	11	7	9	13	14	65
Margin of Error	0.154	0.167	0.13	0.15	0.155	0.198	0.0597

At the second stage, households were selected within each of the clusters selected at the first stage. A total of 2,800 households were randomly selected in all six districts with 25 households to be sampled within each cluster.

The sample selection was done in a two-step process. First, to select the clusters, the sample frame was prepared from the updated database of visitation records. The sample was stratified using the 12 stratum (Urban/Rural by district). The sample was then designed to have a greater probability of sampling the larger units; thus, the probability proportional to size (PPS) without replacement method was used. The units were then defined as per the outcome in Table 2. The second step in selecting the households was completed using the simple systematic method with unit counts of 25 for each stratum.

Weighting

To obtain population estimates, weights were attributed to each sampling region. First, the sampling regions were determined taking into consideration the district, urban/rural, sex, and age group where:

s = District * 1000 + U/R * 100 + sex * 10 + age group

District: 1 = Corozal, 2 = Orange Walk, 3 = Belize, 4 = Cayo, 5 = Stann Creek, and 6 = Toledo

U/R: 1 = Urban and 2 = Rural

Sex: 1 = Male and 2 = Female

Age group:

1 = 0 to 13

2 = 14 to 24

3 = 25 to 34

4 = 35 to 44

5 = 45 to 54

6 = 55+

                   

Second, the estimate of the population for each sampling region was determined where:

P_s = population assigned to sampling region s obtained from the current mid-month estimate weighted by totals from the 2010 census.

i.e. P_s = E * R_s / C

where E = total population by district, U/R, Sex from the latest mid-month estimates

                                         R_s = total population of sampling region from 2010 census

                                          C = total population by district, U/R, sex from 2010 census

Finally, the weight for each sampling region was determined where:

W_s = P_s/N_s where N_s = number of sample observations in sample region s.

Data Collection Dates                 start 2018-04-8       end 2018-05-05

Data Collection Mode                  Face-to-face [f2f] 

 

Data Collection Notes

Pre fieldwork: Six teams – each consisting of 1 field supervisor, 3 interviewers, and a driver - were recruited to carry out the survey over a period of 4 weeks from April 8^th to May 5^th.  Six persons were recruited to conduct and code the respective fields for occupations and industries in each questionnaire.  Experienced field staff who had successfully completed at least two rounds of the LFS were given a two-day refresher training and new or relatively new field staff were given a week of training. A one-day field practice was scheduled in a selected urban area in each district for each team to familiarize themselves with conducting an actual interview using all materials including tablets, MiFi devices, and electronic maps.  Teams were asked to upload all complete assignments so that headquarters could review the following day and point out errors not captured by the software. All temporary staff, including editors/coders met for a one-day discussion of the practical field work. An additional day was scheduled to train editors/coders on how to properly code occupations and industries and look for errors in each questionnaire.

 

Fieldwork: After a thorough training, the six teams started data collection on April 8^th using 7-inch tablets installed with Survey Solutions, a Computer-Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI) software developed by the World Bank. Corozal, Orange Walk, Belize, and Cayo districts were each assigned 450 households, while Stann Creek and Toledo districts were allotted 500 each. The teams worked six days a week, taking advantage of the weekends when most persons could be found at home.  Through Survey Solutions, field supervisors were able to assign households to interviewers using internet connection. Field supervisors were given access to electronic maps through an ArcGIS application installed on their tablet that would assist them in identifying the Enumeration Area (EA) boundary. Along with a list of sampled households, a print out of a visitation record for each EA assisted supervisors in locating households.  Once the household was identified, interviewers conducted face to face interviews and uploaded complete assignments at the end of the day.  Data was collected from a responsible adult from the household; a proxy was allowed in cases where the other members of the household were not present. Editors/coders and headquarters had access to the data once this process was complete. Constant field supervision was performed during the four weeks conducting live interviews and re-interviews to improve data quality.

 

Field Checking: In April 2018, 6 temporary Field Supervisors were hired to each supervise the work of a team of 4 persons. The role of the Field Supervisor (FS) consisted of primarily identifying the enumeration district with the use of a GIS application and identifying each household in the sample listing with the use of printed visitation record. They also conducted at least 2 re-interviews in every cluster and witnessed a live interview for each interviewer during the first two weeks of data collection. With support from HQ, re-interviews were completed at random or specific selected households that needed further clarification or where inconsistencies were spotted by editors/coders. If there were major changes captured from a re-interview conducted, the data was changed and the field supervisor and/or the interviewer was made aware of the error. If further re-training was needed in the field, then this was also done at the time of HQ visit. HQ also supported in locating households that were difficult to find, persuading households that refused to participate in the survey, and verifying selected households that had changed to businesses, vacant lots, under construction and so on. The FSs and HQ staff had similar roles but HQ had scheduled visits only one time per the week to conduct spot checks in both urban and rural areas.

 

Sensitization: An advertisement was announced over six radio stations: Love FM (Belize), Estereo Amor (Belize), Hamanali (Dangriga), Wamanali (Punta Gorda), Radio Bahia (Corozal) and Fiesta FM (Orange Walk). The announcement was about a minute in length informing the public that interviewers would need their cooperation, the purpose of the survey and the periodicity of the data collection. The announcement was aired at prime time for 9 days (Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays).

 

Data Processing and Editing and Coding: Six temporary editors/coders and one head editor/coder were hired to commence work on April 10^th, 2018. They were trained in survey solutions and how to identify and enter occupation and industry codes accurately. The role of the editor/coder was to check each questionnaire for consistency and enter codes where necessary. At the supervisory level of checks, an account was created so both FSs and editors/coders could have access to all questionnaires that were completed and synchronized. Since survey solutions covered most consistency checks, the editing part was mostly to verify that the data that was collected was logical. For instance, if the head of the household and spouse were both Mennonites, and the child was Creole, then survey solutions would not capture this. In editing, they also rejected responses in the ‘Other category’ that was already listed in one of the previous categories. Once error-free, the questionnaires were approved and ready for payment. The head editor/coder gave support to all six coders, especially new ones. An HQ account was created for her to also have access to questionnaires where she was initially responsible to spot check six out of 25 questionnaires and approve these cases.

Each editor/coder was assigned a district, but if they had approved all synched questionnaires for their district, then they would move on to a different district. Although Field Supervisors were asked to check all descriptions to ensure that the response could be codes, there were still vague or broad descriptions that were rejected by editors/coders. There were many difficulties with coding questionnaires from both Cayo and Stann Creek districts which caused delays since FSs were reminded on a daily basis to advise the teams to make corrections. The LFS team at HQ was comprised of 3 persons who also supported editors/coders and pointed out their errors using an HQ level survey solutions account. Errors were pointed out using the comments sections and were rejected back to editors/coders where they either needed to make a coding correction or it had to be further rejected to the interviewer. The data processing stage took about 6 weeks.

After approving all questionnaires at the HQ level, the data was exported to SPSS where 4 useful datasets were merged and a final document was prepared to be cleaned. In the cleaning stage, there were some missing information (especially codes) that needed to be entered. Once the final dataset was cleaned, it was ready for data analysis.

 

Data Collectors: Data collection was completed by six teams consisting of 3 interviewers, one FS and a driver in each team. Each team was assigned a rented vehicle and were required to work 6 days of the week, including weekends. A total of 31 field staff were recruited for training. There were three training dates to cater for experienced and new interviewers recruited. In each district, a relief person was trained in the event that a person from the team was not able to work. For districts where all or most interviewers were new, the best interviewer was selected after seeing their performance during training. Some relief interviewers were discouraged with this idea when it was mentioned the first day of training, so some persons dropped out. The main role of the interviewer was to travel to the assigned area and conduct face-to-face interviews using a 7-inch tablet and edit and synchronize completed assignments at the end of each day. They were also to make corrections rejected by editors/coders and make call backs to the households wherever necessary.

Estimates of Sampling Error              None

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Citation Requirements

"Statistical Institute of Belize, Labour Force Survey April 2018 of the public use dataset (April 2018), provided by the Statistical Institute of Belize."

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