SJOBC – Job Characteristics Module

OVERVIEW

The 2006 graduate-sibling job characteristics module is identical to that of the 2004 graduate instrument (see COR 850).  The job characteristics module collects data on the current or last employment spell if the respondent has never retired from a job.  If a respondent has retired then data is collected about the first employment spell the respondent reported retiring from.

The job characteristics module consists of two parts: the wage section and the job characteristics section.  All respondents who have been in the labor force since they were last interviewed receive the pay questions (cg011jjc – cg022jjd) as well as questions about union membership (cf023jcc) and the level of government (cg026jjf) if applicable.  The job characteristics questions (cg028jjc-cg058jjc) are given to the same 75% sub-sample of respondents that got them in the 1993-1994 wave.

There are five new questions in the current wave: how often respondents felt stressful at work (cg201jj) and how often they felt used up at the end of the day (cg202jj).   The final three new questions are about computer usage (cg203jj and cg204jj) and Internet access (cg205jj) on the job.

Another new feature in the current wave is that up to five hazardous conditions are coded instead of only one.  They are coded in the order that they were mentioned by the respondent.

The final big change in the current wave of data has to do with the construction of the base hourly wage rate.  These changes follow the logic of the last wave (see cor582) but are adapted to changes in the instrument.  They are documented in cor958a.rtf and cor958b.sas  - NEED TO CREATE THESE AFTER ALL NOTES ARE CHECKED

BRIEF VARIABLE DESCRIPTIONS (in the order of the dataset)

cg011jjc-cg018jjc	How the respondent was paid and how much they received

cg021jjd		Constructed base hourly wage rate

cg022jjd		How base hourly wage rate was constructed

cf023jcc		Union Membership

cg026jjf		Is current job with government

cg127jj				flag for inclusion in 75% Job Characteristics sub-sample

cg028jjc-cg202jj	Job characteristics

cg203jj-cg205jj	Computer/Internet usage on the job

cg046jjc-cg053jjc	more job characteristics

cg054jjc-cg057jjd	hazardous job conditions

cg058jjc		Subjective rating of job security

CODING

cg011jjc
	
Respondents were given a choice of hourly or salary pay or other-specify.  The full set of 8 categories is identical to that used in 1992-1993.  The decision rules are:

- CODE 0 includes only family workers who report no pay.  EXCLUDES business owners and self employed who report that they do not pay themselves.

- CODE 1 includes the following types of responses, Hourly plus bonus and Hourly wages and those paid by the half hour after the rate was adjusted to per hour
	
- CODE 2 includes the following responses Salary, Salary plus bonus, and Salary plus hourly overtime

- CODE 3 includes those paid by: 
- flight hours
- miles
-  contract/job/client-student/project AND not self employed
- daily rate/weekly/biweekly/monthly because they could be either salary or hourly, stipend/allowance
-paid differently every year or throughout tenure AND don't give final method
	- rent if Respondents does not own building
	- don't give enough information
	- bonus only 

- CODE 4 includes: Hourly plus commission and Piecework

- CODE 5 includes: Salary plus Commision and other pay per performance with salary

- CODE 6 includes: Commission, Realtors, paid based on production/sales only AND NOT self employed

CODE 7 includes respondents who report they were: Business owners, Self- Employed, paid through the sale of Agricultural goods, or Independent Contractors.  
	
cg026jjf

Coding these responses was fairly straightforward.  Respondents were given the choices – federal, state, or local government  or other-specify.  Most of the other specify consisted of public school teachers or county government workers who were coded 3 for local.  Post office workers were coded 1 for federal.  Respondents who said that their job was at multiple levels of government were coded at the lowest level of government mentioned because most of the time the higher levels of government contributed funding but the actual work was at the lowest level.  If a person worked for a foreign government or for an interstate council of local governments then they were coded 4 for other.

cg055jjd-cg455jjd
	
The code set used in the current wave is identical to the one used in 1993-1994.  The first hazard mentioned is in cg055jjd, the second in cg155jjd etc…  The decision rules used are as follows:
-	Code 01 includes respondents who used syringes and/or had contact with raw meat
-	Code 03 includes exposure to traffic and traffic accidents
-	Code 05 includes mentions of war/terrorism/weapons, the threat of anthrax in the mail, and interacting with criminals – except prisoners
-	Code 06 includes prisoners
-	Code 10 includes exposure to fire and/or ‘molten’ substances
-	Code 13 includes the possibility of explosions
-	Code 14 includes drugs for chemotherapy and otherwise, “hazardous waste”, cleaning chemicals, solvents and fertilizer
-	Code 26 includes exposure to mold and mildew, as well as references to ‘the building’, ‘sick building’ or parts of ‘the building’, people who worked around but not with machines and those who report allergies due to the building
-	Code 33 includes exposure to falling items, and working underground
-	Respondents who just mentioned machines or equipment were coded 08
-	Respondents who mentioned agricultural chemicals and/or spraying chemicals were coded 18 rather than 14
-	Welders were coded 08 and 10
-	Respondents who answered with a variation of all of the above were coded 14, 08, 10 because this is the order hazards are mentioned in the question
-	Respondents who only answered that they were in construction were coded 8, 12, 14, 19
-	Respondents who only answered that they were farmers were coded 7, 8, 18

PROBLEMS
	
The pay variables for some cases had to be coded directly in the variable creation file.  All such changes are documented in cor958b.sas.

General rules for correcting values on cg012jjc, cg013jjc, and cg018jjc
	
If a range was given then the mean of the range rounded to the nearest cent for cg012jjc and dollar for the other two was used.

If the response was an estimate or one sided boundary then they were coded in the following way:
	- about $200		= 200
	- less than $200	= 199
	- more than $200   	= 201
	- $200 and some $    	= 201
	- a couple hundred    	= 200
If the respondent gave a pay check amount or other aggregated response the following conversions were used to get it into the appropriate time period
		- current hours per week [cf132jcc] or 40 if missing
		- 4.33 weeks per month
		- 12 months per year
		- 2 weeks for biweekly
- if report per day then divide hours per week by 5 to get hours per day or assume 8 hours per day if missing current hours

Respondents who reported being paid minimum wage were assigned the value of the federal minimum wage in the year they left the job or the current value of $5.15 an hour if they are currently working there.  The minimum wages from 1980 to 2005 are as follows from the Dept of Labor website:

http://www.dol.gov/ILAB/media/reports/oiea/wagestudy/FS-UnitedStates.htm

	1980        	$3.10 		1981		$3.35 		1982 		$3.35
1983 		$3.35		1984 		$3.35		1985 		$3.35
1986 		$3.35		1987 		$3.35		1988 		$3.35
1989 		$3.35		1990 		$3.80		1991 		$4.25
1992 		$4.25		1993 		$4.25		1994 		$4.25
1995 		$4.25		1996 		$4.38		1997 		$4.88
1998 		$5.15		1999 		$5.15		2000		$5.15
2001		$5.15		2002		$5.15		2003		$5.15
2004		$5.15		2005		$5.15

??? respondents gave answers in foreign currency (??????s and ??????s) and were given the value of the average Interbank exchange rate the year that they left work as calculated by the following website:

http://www.oanda.com/convert/fxaverage

PEOPLE

Carl Frederick – Wrote the command file to create the analysis variables,  coded open ended responses, made corrections to the raw data, wrote the cor

REFERENCES