Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The Employment in Britain Survey, 1992 (EIB) aimed to survey the British labour market. It sampled employed, unemployed and self-employed people aged between 20 and 60 years. The aim of the study was to contribute to the assessment of changes over time in employment in Britain, and to provide data for research on cross-national differences. There were two chief principles guiding the construction of the questionnaire. The first was relevance for testing theories and predictions about changes in the employment relationship. The second principle was comparabiiity with other research. The EIB questionnaires were based on various sources, including the Women and Employment Survey, 1980 (held at the UK Data Archive (UKDA) under SN 1746), the Social Class in Modern Britain, 1984 survey (held under SN 2718), the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative Surveys, 1986-1987 (SCELI) (held under SN 2798) and the British Social Attitudes Survey, 1989 (held under SN 2723). Questions from the EIB survey have since been used in other surveys, such as the Skills Surveys of 1997 and 2001 (held at the UKDA under SNs 3993 and 4972 respectively).

Main Topics:

Topics covered in the questionnaires covered a wide variety of issues relating to the respondent's current employment position and employment history, and to the characteristics of their employer, where appropriate. In addition, respondents were asked a set of questions designed to elicit subjective preferences and attitudes to a wide variety of aspects of employment.

Multi-stage stratified random sample

Face-to-face interview

Self-completion