IntroductionObtaining real-world data from routine clinical care is of growing interest for scientific research and personalized medicine. Despite the abundance of medical data across various facilities — including hospitals, outpatient clinics, and physician practices — the intersectoral exchange of information remains largely hindered due to differences in data structure, content, and adherence to data protection regulations. In response to this challenge, the Medical Informatics Initiative (MII) was launched in Germany, focusing initially on university hospitals to foster the exchange and utilization of real-world data through the development of standardized methods and tools, including the creation of a common core dataset. Our aim, as part of the Medical Informatics Research Hub in Saxony (MiHUBx), is to extend the MII concepts to non-university healthcare providers in a more seamless manner to enable the exchange of real-world data among intersectoral medical sites.MethodsWe investigated what services are needed to facilitate the provision of harmonized real-world data for cross-site research. On this basis, we designed a Service Platform Prototype that hosts services for data harmonization, adhering to the globally recognized Health Level 7 (HL7) Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) international standard communication format and the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership (OMOP) common data model (CDM). Leveraging these standards, we implemented additional services facilitating data utilization, exchange and analysis. Throughout the development phase, we collaborated with an interdisciplinary team of experts from the fields of system administration, software engineering and technology acceptance to ensure that the solution is sustainable and reusable in the long term.ResultsWe have developed the pre-built packages “ResearchData-to-FHIR,” “FHIR-to-OMOP,” and “Addons,” which provide the services for data harmonization and provision of project-related real-world data in both the FHIR MII Core dataset format (CDS) and the OMOP CDM format as well as utilization and a Service Platform Prototype to streamline data management and use.ConclusionOur development shows a possible approach to extend the MII concepts to non-university healthcare providers to enable cross-site research on real-world data. Our Service Platform Prototype can thus pave the way for intersectoral data sharing, federated analysis, and provision of SMART-on-FHIR applications to support clinical decision making.

Abstract

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE PALESTINIAN CENTRAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) carried out four rounds of the Labor Force Survey 2012 (LFS). The survey rounds covered a total sample of about 30,887 households, and the number of completed questionaire is 26,898.

The main objective of collecting data on the labour force and its components, including employment, unemployment and underemployment, is to provide basic information on the size and structure of the Palestinian labour force. Data collected at different points in time provide a basis for monitoring current trends and changes in the labour market and in the employment situation. These data, supported with information on other aspects of the economy, provide a basis for the evaluation and analysis of macro-economic policies.

The raw survey data provided by the Statistical Agency were cleaned and harmonized by the Economic Research Forum, in the context of a major project that started in 2009. During which extensive efforts have been exerted to acquire, clean, harmonize, preserve and disseminate micro data of existing labor force surveys in several Arab countries.

Geographic coverage

Covering a representative sample on the region level (West Bank, Gaza Strip), the locality type (urban, rural, camp) and the governorates.

Analysis unit

1- Household/family. 2- Individual/person.

Universe

The survey covered all Palestinian households who are a usual residence of the Palestinian Territory.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE PALESTINIAN CENTRAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS

The methodology was designed according to the context of the survey, international standards, data processing requirements and comparability of outputs with other related surveys.

---> Target Population: It consists of all individuals aged 10 years and older normally residing in their households in Palestine during 2012.

---> Sampling Frame: The sampling frame consists of the master sample, which was updated in 2011: each enumeration area consists of buildings and housing units with an average of about 124 households. The master sample consists of 596 enumeration areas; we used 498 enumeration areas as a framework for the labor force survey sample in 2012 and these units were used as primary sampling units (PSUs).

---> Sampling Size: The estimated sample size in the first quarter was 7,775 households, in the second quarter it was 7,713 households, in the third quarter it was 7,695 households and in the fourth quarter it was 7,704 households.

---> Sample Design The sample is two stage stratified cluster sample with two stages : First stage: we select a systematic random sample of 498 enumeration areas for the whole round ,and we excluded the enumeration areas which its sizes less than 40 households. Second stage: we select a systematic random sample of 16 households from each enumeration area selected in the first stage, se we select a systematic random of 16 households of the enumeration areas which its size is 80 household and over and the enumeration areas which its size is less than 80 households we select systematic random of 8 households.

---> Sample strata: The population was divided by: 1- Governorate (16 governorate) 2- Type of Locality (urban, rural, refugee camps).

---> Sample Rotation: Each round of the Labor Force Survey covers all of the 498 master sample enumeration areas. Basically, the areas remain fixed over time, but households in 50% of the EAs were replaced in each round. The same households remain in the sample for two consecutive rounds, left for the next two rounds, then selected for the sample for another two consecutive rounds before being dropped from the sample. An overlap of 50% is then achieved between both consecutive rounds and between consecutive years (making the sample efficient for monitoring purposes).

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The survey questionnaire was designed according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) recommendations. The questionnaire includes four main parts:

---> 1. Identification Data: The main objective for this part is to record the necessary information to identify the household, such as, cluster code, sector, type of locality, cell, housing number and the cell code.

---> 2. Quality Control: This part involves groups of controlling standards to monitor the field and office operation, to keep in order the sequence of questionnaire stages (data collection, field and office coding, data entry, editing after entry and store the data.

---> 3. Household Roster: This part involves demographic characteristics about the household, like number of persons in the household, date of birth, sex, educational level…etc.

---> 4. Employment Part: This part involves the major research indicators, where one questionnaire had been answered by every 15 years and over household member, to be able to explore their labour force status and recognize their major characteristics toward employment status, economic activity, occupation, place of work, and other employment indicators.

Cleaning operations

---> Raw Data The data processing stage consisted of the following operations: 1. Editing and coding before data entry: All questionnaires were edited and coded in the office using the same instructions adopted for editing in the field. 2. Data entry: At this stage, data was entered into the computer using a data entry template designed in Access. The data entry program was prepared to satisfy a number of requirements such as: - Duplication of the questionnaires on the computer screen. - Logical and consistency check of data entered. - Possibility for internal editing of question answers. - Maintaining a minimum of digital data entry and fieldwork errors. - User friendly handling. Possibility of transferring data into another format to be used and analyzed using other statistical analytic systems such as SPSS.

---> Harmonized Data - The SPSS package is used to clean and harmonize the datasets. - The harmonization process starts with a cleaning process for all raw data files received from the Statistical Agency. - All cleaned data files are then merged to produce one data file on the individual level containing all variables subject to harmonization. - A country-specific program is generated for each dataset to generate/ compute/ recode/ rename/ format/ label harmonized variables. - A post-harmonization cleaning process is then conducted on the data. - Harmonized data is saved on the household as well as the individual level, in SPSS and then converted to STATA, to be disseminated.

Response rate

The survey sample consists of 30,887 households, of which 26,898 households completed the interview: 17,594 households from the West Bank and 9,304 households in Gaza Strip. Weights were modified to account for the non-response rate. The response rate in the West Bank was 90.2 %, while in the Gaza Strip it was 94.7%.

Sampling error estimates

---> Sampling Errors Data of this survey may be affected by sampling errors due to use of a sample and not a complete enumeration. Therefore, certain differences can be expected in comparison with the real values obtained through censuses. Variances were calculated for the most important indicators: the variance table is attached with the final report. There is no problem in disseminating results at national or governorate level for the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

---> Non-Sampling Errors Non-statistical errors are probable in all stages of the project, during data collection or processing. This is referred to as non-response errors, response errors, interviewing errors, and data entry errors. To avoid errors and reduce their effects, great efforts were made to train the fieldworkers intensively. They were trained on how to carry out the interview, what to discuss and what to avoid, carrying out a pilot survey, as well as practical and theoretical training during the training course. Also data entry staff were trained on the data entry program that was examined before starting the data entry process. To stay in contact with progress of fieldwork activities and to limit obstacles, there was continuous contact with the fieldwork team through regular visits to the field and regular meetings with them during the different field visits. Problems faced by fieldworkers were discussed to clarify any issues. Non-sampling errors can occur at the various stages of survey implementation whether in data collection or in data processing. They are generally difficult to be evaluated statistically.

They cover a wide range of errors, including errors resulting from non-response, sampling frame coverage, coding and classification, data processing, and survey response (both respondent and interviewer-related). The use of effective training and supervision and the careful design of questions have direct bearing on limiting the magnitude of non-sampling errors, and hence enhancing the quality of the resulting data. The implementation of the survey encountered non-response where the case ( household was not present at home ) during the fieldwork visit

The Arab Barometer Wave V 2018-2019 is based on a nationally representative probability sample of the population aged 18 and above. In most countries, the sample includes 2,400 citizens. The data were conducted in face-to-face public opinion surveys (CAPI and PAPI). See technical reports by country for country-specific information. You can find the data, codebooks and all relevant information on the Arab Barometer website.

Our dataset contains country weighted counts of different answer options and the re-weighted values of the answers given to the Arab Barometer Wave 5 question:

Q101 : How would you evaluate the current economic situation in your country? Very good, Good, Bad, Very bad our Don’t know, Refused to answer.

See PDF documentation for details

Open Access training materials for a training on INSPIRE good practices in the Soil domain. Soil experts, data scientists and IT operators from across Europe joined for a 3 day training on INSPIRE Good Practices around Soil Data at Wageningen University and Research in April 2022. Learning goals What is INSPIRE and its goals Experiences with INSPIRE Soil data harmonisation from EJP partners The INSPIRE Soil data model, a conceptual model to facilitate data interoperability Implementation options for the conceptual soil model Data transfer protocols for data exchange Formats and protocols for metadata discovery Vocabularies and Code lists in the Soil domain Upcoming developments Intended audience Technical background (data bases, web services) National or regional institutes which produce or consume soil data Contents - Why is the INSPIRE directive relevant for EJP, why this training. (Maria Fantappiè, CREA) - The reasoning behind INSPIRE why do we need a directive? (Joeri Robbrecht, European Commission) - Why do we need to understand INSPIRE and share data? (Jandrik Bulens, WENR) - Experiences of Implementing SOIL in INSPIRE. (Maria Fantappiè (CREA), Florian Hoedt (Thünen) and Dries Luts (AGIV)) - Conceptual Framework (Luis de Sousa, ISRIC) - Data discovery (Paul van Genuchten, ISRIC) - Interoperability; O&M, Sensorthings API, Web Coverage Services (Katharina Schleidt, Datacove) - Extending INSPIRE for the Air Quality directive (Katharina Schleidt, Datacove) - INSPIRE Soil: an overview and relations with other standards, the conceptual model of the soil theme as a common base (Kathi Schleidt, Datacove) - Harmonize, map, transform: what does it mean? (Paul van Genuchten, ISRIC) - Code lists in INSPIRE (Paul van Genuchten, ISRIC) - Implementation, operation, reporting. How do you keep track on progress? (Paul van Genuchten, ISRIC) - Technical aspects of view (WMS)-, download (WFS, Atom) services and data harmonization (Paul van Genuchten, ISRIC) - Adapting to evolved developments specifically WCS and SensorThings (Katharina Schleidt, Datacove) - Zooming in on INSPIRE and GloSIS mapping. What about tools and software to be used (Luis de Sousa, ISRIC) - Emerging data exchange technologies: OGC API; RDF/SPARQL, Gaia-x. Why, what and how? (Paul van Genuchten, ISRIC) EJP Soil The Horizon Europe EJP SOIL research project facilitated EU member states to share Soil data following the INSPIRE Directive with training on: Soil Data good practices. The training was organized by EJP SOIL to raise awareness and to facilitate member states in publishing harmonized Soil Data in the scope of current directives. EJP Soil has a work package dedicated to facilitating member states to publish harmonized soil data. In an inventory from 2021 it appeared that member states in general have a low awareness of the Soil Data Harmonization and Publication requirements of the various soil related directives, such as INSPIRE. Also a lack of experience with technologies to facilitate these processes was identified. For this reason, a training has been prepared dedicated specifically to harmonization and publication of Soil Data, based on the experiences from the wider INSPIRE community. About INSPIRE The INSPIRE Directive aims to create a European Union Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) for the purposes of EU environmental policies and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment. This European Spatial Data Infrastructure will enable the sharing of environmental spatial information among public sector organisations, facilitate public access to spatial information across Europe and assist in policy-making across boundaries. INSPIRE is based on the infrastructures for spatial information established and operated by the Member States of the European Union. The Directive addresses 34 spatial data themes needed for environmental applications.

Abstract

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE PALESTINIAN CENTRAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) carried out four rounds of the Labor Force Survey(LFS) 2013. The survey rounds covered a total sample of about 30,524 households, and the number of completed questionaire is 26,420.

The main objective of collecting data on the labour force and its components, including employment, unemployment and underemployment, is to provide basic information on the size and structure of the Palestinian labour force. Data collected at different points in time provide a basis for monitoring current trends and changes in the labour market and in the employment situation. These data, supported with information on other aspects of the economy, provide a basis for the evaluation and analysis of macro-economic policies.

The raw survey data provided by the Statistical Agency were cleaned and harmonized by the Economic Research Forum, in the context of a major project that started in 2009. During which extensive efforts have been exerted to acquire, clean, harmonize, preserve and disseminate micro data of existing labor force surveys in several Arab countries.

Geographic coverage

Covering a representative sample on the region level (West Bank, Gaza Strip), the locality type (urban, rural, camp) and the governorates.

Analysis unit

1- Household/family. 2- Individual/person.

Universe

The survey covered all Palestinian households who are a usual residence of the Palestinian Territory.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE PALESTINIAN CENTRAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS

The methodology was designed according to the context of the survey, international standards, data processing requirements and comparability of outputs with other related surveys.

---> Target Population: It consists of all individuals aged 10 years and older normally residing in their households in Palestine during 2013.

---> Sampling Frame: The sampling frame consists of master sample which updated in 2011, each enumeration area consists of buildings and housing units with average of about 124 households in it. These master sample consists of 596 enumeration areas, we used 494 enumeration areas as a framework for the labor force survey sample in 2013, and these units have been used as primary sampling units (PSUs).

---> Sampling Size: The estimated sample size in the first quarter is 7,676 households, in the second, third, and fourth quarter is 7,616 household for each quarter.

---> Sample Design The sample of this survey is implemented periodically every quarter by PCBS since 1995, so this survey implement every quarter in the year (distributed over 13 weeks). The sample is two stage stratified cluster sample with two stages: first stage we select a systematic random sample of 494 enumeration areas for the whole round. second stage we select a random area sample of average 16 households from each enumeration area selected in the first stage.

---> Sample strata: The population was divided by: 1- Governorate (16 governorate) 2- Type of Locality (urban, rural, refugee camps).

---> Sample Rotation: Each round of the Labor Force Survey covers all of the 494 master sample enumeration areas. Basically, the areas remain fixed over time, but households in 50% of the EAs are replaced each round. The same household remains in the sample for 2 consecutive rounds, left for the next two rounds, then selected for the sample for another two consecutive rounds before it is dropped from the sample. A 50% overlap is then achieved between both consecutive rounds and between consecutive years (making the sample efficient for monitoring purposes).

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The survey questionnaire was designed according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) recommendations. The questionnaire includes four main parts:

---> 1. Identification Data: The main objective for this part is to record the necessary information to identify the household, such as, cluster code, sector, type of locality, cell, housing number and the cell code.

---> 2. Quality Control: This part involves groups of controlling standards to monitor the field and office operation, to keep in order the sequence of questionnaire stages (data collection, field and office coding, data entry, editing after entry and store the data.

---> 3. Household Roster: This part involves demographic characteristics about the household, like number of persons in the household, date of birth, sex, educational level…etc.

---> 4. Employment Part: This part involves the major research indicators, where one questionnaire had been answered by every 15 years and over household member, to be able to explore their labour force status and recognize their major characteristics toward employment status, economic activity, occupation, place of work, and other employment indicators.

Cleaning operations

---> Raw Data The data processing stage consisted of the following operations: 1. Editing and coding before data entry: All questionnaires were edited and coded in the office using the same instructions adopted for editing in the field. 2. Data entry: At this stage, data was entered into the computer using a data entry template designed in Access. The data entry program was prepared to satisfy a number of requirements such as: - Duplication of the questionnaires on the computer screen. - Logical and consistency check of data entered. - Possibility for internal editing of question answers. - Maintaining a minimum of digital data entry and fieldwork errors. - User friendly handling. Possibility of transferring data into another format to be used and analyzed using other statistical analytic systems such as SPSS.

---> Harmonized Data - The SPSS package is used to clean and harmonize the datasets. - The harmonization process starts with a cleaning process for all raw data files received from the Statistical Agency. - All cleaned data files are then merged to produce one data file on the individual level containing all variables subject to harmonization. - A country-specific program is generated for each dataset to generate/ compute/ recode/ rename/ format/ label harmonized variables. - A post-harmonization cleaning process is then conducted on the data. - Harmonized data is saved on the household as well as the individual level, in SPSS and then converted to STATA, to be disseminated.

Response rate

The survey sample consists of about 30,524 households of which 26,420 households completed the interview; whereas 17,162 households from the West Bank and 9,258 households in Gaza Strip. Weights were modified to account for non-response rate. The response rate in the West Bank reached 89.3% while in the Gaza Strip it reached 95.6%.

Sampling error estimates

---> Sampling Errors Data of this survey may be affected by sampling errors due to use of a sample and not a complete enumeration. Therefore, certain differences can be expected in comparison with the real values obtained through censuses. Variances were calculated for the most important indicators: the variance table is attached with the final report. There is no problem in disseminating results at national or governorate level for the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

---> Non-Sampling Errors Non-statistical errors are possible at all stages of the project, during data collection or processing. These are referred to as non-response errors, response errors, interviewing errors and data entry errors. To avoid errors and reduce their effects, strenuous efforts were made to train the field workers intensively. They were trained on how to carry out the interview, what to discuss and what to avoid, carrying out a pilot survey, as well as practical and theoretical training during the training course. Also data entry staff were trained on the data entry program, which was tested before starting the data entry process. To stay in contact with the progress of field work activities and to limit obstacles, there was continuous contact with the field work team through regular visits to the field and regular meetings with them during the different field visits. Problems faced by field workers were discussed to clarify any issues. Non-sampling errors can occur at various stages of survey implementation, whether in data collection or in data processing. They are generally difficult to be evaluated statistically. They cover a wide range of errors, including errors resulting from non-response, sampling frame coverage, coding and classification, data processing, and survey response (both respondent and interviewer-related). The use of effective training and supervision and the careful design of questions have a direct bearing on limiting the magnitude of non-sampling errors and hence enhancing the quality of the resulting data. The following are possible sources of non-sampling errors: The implementation of the survey encountered non-response where the case (household was not present at home) during the fieldwork visit and (Vacant Housing unit) become the high percentage of the non response cases. The total non-response rate reached 8.6% which is very low once

This SOils DAta Harmonization (SoDaH) database is designed to bring together soil carbon data from diverse research networks into a harmonized dataset that can be used for synthesis activities and model development. The research network sources for SoDaH span different biomes and climates, encompass multiple ecosystem types, and have collected data across a range of spatial, temporal, and depth gradients. The rich data sets assembled in SoDaH consist of observations from monitoring efforts and long-term ecological experiments. The SoDaH database also incorporates related environmental covariate data pertaining to climate, vegetation, soil chemistry, and soil physical properties. The data are harmonized and aggregated using open-source code that enables a scripted, repeatable approach for soil data synthesis.

Interpolated maps showing air quality in Europe. The dataset has been reorganised in order to improve data harmonization among years and to facilitate storage and processing of the interpolated maps for the EEA data services.

Abstract

The Household Income, Expenditure and Consumption Survey (HIECS) is of great importance among other household surveys conducted by statistical agencies in various countries around the world. This survey provides a large amount of data to rely on in measuring the living standards of households and individuals, as well as establishing databases that serve in measuring poverty, designing social assistance programs, and providing necessary weights to compile consumer price indices, considered to be an important indicator to assess inflation.

The survey's main objectives are: - To identify expenditure levels and patterns of population as well as socio- economic and demographic differentials. - To estimate the quantities, values of commodities and services consumed by households during the survey period to determine the levels of consumption and estimate the current demand which is important to predict future demands. - To measure mean household and per-capita expenditure for various expenditure items along with socio-economic correlates. - To define percentage distribution of expenditure for various items used in compiling consumer price indices which is considered important indicator for measuring inflation. - To define mean household and per-capita income from different sources. - To provide data necessary to measure standard of living for households and individuals. Poverty analysis and setting up a basis for social welfare assistance are highly dependent on the results of this survey. - To provide essential data to measure elasticity which reflects the percentage change in expenditure for various commodity and service groups against the percentage change in total expenditure for the purpose of predicting the levels of expenditure and consumption for different commodity and service items in urban and rural areas. - To provide data essential for comparing change in expenditure against change in income to measure income elasticity of expenditure. - To study the relationships between demographic, geographical, housing characteristics of households and their income and expenditure for commodities and services. - To provide data necessary for national accounts especially in compiling inputs and outputs tables. - To identify consumers behavior changes among socio-economic groups in urban and rural areas. - To identify per capita food consumption and its main components of calories, proteins and fats according to its sources and the levels of expenditure in both urban and rural areas. - To identify the value of expenditure for food according to sources, either from household production or not, in addition to household expenditure for non-food commodities and services. - To identify distribution of households according to the possession of some appliances and equipment such as (cars, satellites, mobiles ...) in urban and rural areas. - To identify the percentage distribution of income recipients according to some background variables such as housing conditions, size of household and characteristics of head of household.

Geographic coverage

Covering a sample of urban and rural areas in all the governorates.

Analysis unit

• Household/families
• Individuals

Universe

The survey covered a national sample of households and all individuals permanently residing in surveyed households.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The 2008/2009 HIECS is a two-stage stratified cluster sample, approximately self-weighted, of nearly 48000 household in urban and rural areas. The main elements of the sampling design are described below.

• Sample Size: It has been deemed important to retain the same sample size of the previous two HIECS rounds. Thus, a sample of about 48000 households has been considered. The justification of maintaining the sample size at this level is to have estimates with levels of precision similar to those of the previous two rounds: therefore trend analysis with the previous two surveys will not be distorted by substantial changes in sampling errors from round to another. In addition, this relatively large national sample implies proportional samples of reasonable sizes for smaller governorates. Nonetheless, oversampling has been introduced to raise the sample size of small governorates to about 1000 households. As a result, reasonably precise estimates could be extracted for those governorates. The oversampling has resulted in a slight increase in the national sample to 48658 households.

• Cluster size: An important lesson learned from the previous two HIECS rounds is that the cluster size applied in both surveys is found to be too large to yield an accepted design effect estimates. The cluster size was 40 households in the 2004-2005 round, descending from 80 households in the 1999-2000 round. The estimates of the design effect (deft) for most survey measures of the latest round were extraordinary large. As a result, the cluster size was decreased to only 19 households (20 households in urban governorates to account for anticipated non-response in those governorate. In view of past experience non-response is almost nil in rural governorates).

A more detailed description of the different sampling stages and allocation of sample across governorates is provided in the Methodology document that is provided as an external resources in both Arabic and English.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

Three different questionnaires were used: 1- Expenditure and consumption questionnaire 2- Diary questionnaire for expenditure and consumption 3- Income questionnaire

Cleaning operations

Harmonized Data - The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) is used to clean and harmonize the datasets. - The harmonization process starts with cleaning all raw data files received from the Statistical Office. - Cleaned data files are then all merged to produce one data file on the individual level containing all variables subject to harmonization. - A country-specific program is generated for each dataset to generate/compute/recode/rename/format/label harmonized variables. - A post-harmonization cleaning process is run on the data. - Harmonized data is saved on the household as well as the individual level, in SPSS and converted to STATA format.

Response rate

For the total sample, the response rate was 96.3% (93.95% in urban areas and 98.4% in rural areas).

Sampling error estimates

The sampling error of major survey estimates has been derived using the Ultimate Cluster Method as applied in the CENVAR Module of the Integrated Microcomputer Processing System (IMPS) Package. In addition to the estimate of sampling error, the output includes estimates of coefficient of variation, design effect (DEFF) and 95% confidence intervals.

Data appraisal

The precision of survey results depends to a large extent on how the survey has been prepared for. As such, it was deemed crucial to exert much effort and to take necessary actions towards rigorous preparation for the present survey. The preparatory activities, extended over 3 months, included forming Technical Committee. The Committee has set up the general framework of survey implementation such as:

1- Applying the recent international recommendations of different concepts and definitions of income and expenditure considering maintaining the consistency with the previous surveys in order to compare and study the changes in pertinent indicators.

2- Evaluating the quality of data in all different Implementation stages to avoid or minimize errors to the lowest extent possible through: - Implementing field editing after finishing data collection for households in governorates to avoid any errors in suitable time. - Setting up a program for the Survey Technical Committee Members and survey staff for visiting field work in all governorates (each 15 days) to solve any problem in the proper time. - Re-interviewing a sample of households by Quality Control Department and examining the differences with the original responses. - For the purpose of quality assurance, tables were generated for each survey round where internal consistency checks were performed to study the plausibility of mean household expenditure on major expenditure commodity groups and its variability over major geographic regions.

EGDI 1:1 Million pan-european Surface Geology data built from harvested INSPIRE European WFS' for 1:1 Million Surface geology: geologic units. Based on data served as OneGeology and INSPIRE conformant services using INSPIRE Lithology and Geochronologic Era URI codelists.

Abstract

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE PALESTINIAN CENTRAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS

The basic goal of the Household and Consumption Survey is to provide a necessary database for formulating national policies at various levels. This survey provides the contribution of the household sector to the Gross National Product (GNP). It determines the incidence of poverty, and provides weighted data which reflects the relative importance of the consumption items to be employed in determining the benchmark for rates and prices of items and services. Furthermore, this survey is a fundamental cornerstone in the process of studying the nutritional status in the Palestinian territory.

The raw survey data provided by the Statistical Agency were cleaned and harmonized by the Economic Research Forum, in the context of a major project that started in 2009. During which extensive efforts have been exerted to acquire, clean, harmonize, preserve and disseminate micro data of existing household surveys in several Arab countries.

Geographic coverage

The Data are representative at region level (West Bank, Gaza Strip), locality type (urban, rural, camp) and governorates.

Analysis unit

1- Household/family. 2- Individual/person.

Universe

All Palestinian households who are usually resident in the Palestinian Territory during 2011.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE PALESTINIAN CENTRAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS

Sample and Frame: The sampling frame consists of all enumeration areas which were enumerated in 2007, each numeration area consists of buildings and housing units with average of about 120 households in it. These enumeration areas are used as primary sampling units PSUs in the first stage of the sampling selection.

Sample Size: The calculated sample size for the Expenditure and Consumption survey 2011 is about 4,317 households, 2,834 households in West Bank and 1,483 households in Gaza Strip.

Sample Design: The sample is a stratified cluster systematic random sample with two stages: First stage: selection of a systematic random sample of 215 enumeration areas. Second stage: selection of a systematic random sample of 24 households from each enumeration area selected in the first stage.

Note: in Jerusalem Governorate (J1), 14 enumeration areas were selected. In the second stage, a group of households from each enumeration area were chosen using the 2007 census method of delineation and enumeration to obtain 24 responsive households. This ensures household response is the maximum to comply with the percentage of non-response as set in the sample design.

Enumeration areas were distributed to twelve months and the sample for each quarter covers sample strata (Governorate, locality type)

Sample strata: The population was divided by: 1- Governorate 2- Type of Locality (urban, rural, refugee camps)

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The PECS questionnaire consists of two main sections:

First: Survey's Questionnaire Part of the questionnaire is to be filled in during the visit at the beginning of the month, while the other part is to be filled in at the end of the month. The questionnaire includes: Control Sheet: Includes household's identification data, date of visit, data on the fieldwork and data processing team, and summary of household's members by gender. Household Roster: Includes demographic, social, and economic characteristics of household's members. Housing Characteristics: Includes data like type of housing unit, number of rooms, value of rent, and connection of housing unit to basic services like water, electricity and sewage. In addition, data in this section includes source of energy used for cooking and heating, distance of housing unit from transportation, education, and health centers, and sources of income generation like ownership of farm land or animals. Food and Non-Food Items: includes food and non-food items, and household record her expenditure for one month. Durable Goods Schedule: Includes list of main goods like washing machine, refrigerator, TV. Assistances and Poverty: Includes data about cash and in kind assistances (assistance value, assistance source), also collecting data about household situation, and the procedures to cover expenses. Monthly and Annual Income: Data pertinent to household's income from different sources is collected at the end of the registration period.

Second: List of Goods The classification of the list of goods is based on the recommendation of the United Nations for the SNA under the name Classification of Personal Consumption by purpose. The list includes 55 groups of expenditure and consumption where each is given a sequence number based on its importance to the household starting with food goods, clothing groups, housing, medical treatment, transportation and communication, and lastly durable goods. Each group consists of important goods. The total number of goods in all groups amounted to 667 items for goods and services. Groups from 1-21 includes goods pertinent to food, drinks and cigarettes. Group 22 includes goods that are home produced and consumed by the household. The groups 23-45 include all items except food, drinks and cigarettes. The groups 50-55 include durable goods. The data is collected based on different reference periods to represent expenditure during the whole year except for cars where data is collected for the last three years.

Registration Form The registration form includes instructions and examples on how to record consumption and expenditure items. The form includes columns: * Monetary: If the good is purchased, or in kind: if the item is self produced. * Title of the service of the good * Unit of measurement (kilogram, liter, number) * Quantity * Value

The pages of the registration form are colored differently for the weeks of the month. The footer for each page includes remarks that encourage households to participate in the survey. The following are instructions that illustrate the nature of the items that should be recorded: * Monetary expenditures during purchases * Purchases based on debts * Monetary gifts once presented * Interest at pay * Self produced food and goods once consumed * Food and merchandise from commercial project once consumed * Merchandises once received as a wage or part of a wage from the employer.

Cleaning operations

Raw Data

Data editing took place through a number of stages, including: 1. Office editing and coding 2. Data entry 3. Structure checking and completeness 4. Structural checking of SPSS data files

Harmonized Data

• The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) is used to clean and harmonize the datasets.
• The harmonization process starts with cleaning all raw data files received from the Statistical Agency.
• Cleaned data files are then all merged to produce one data file on the individual level containing all variables subject to harmonization.
• A country-specific program is generated for each dataset to generate/ compute/ recode/ rename/ format/ label harmonized variables.
• A post-harmonization cleaning process is then conducted on the data.
• Harmonized data is saved on the household as well as the individual level, in SPSS and converted to STATA format.

Response rate

The survey sample consisted of 5,272 households, weights were modified to account for the non-response rate. The response rate was 88%.

Total sample size = 5,272 Households Household completed = 4317 Households Traveling households = 66 Households Unit does not exist = 48 Households No one at home = 135 Households Refused to cooperate = 347 Households Vacant housing unit = 222 Households No available information = 6 Households Other= 30 Households

Response and non-response rates formulas:

Percentage of over-coverage errors = Total cases of over-coverage*100% Number of cases in original sample = 5% Non-response rate = Total cases of non-response*100% Net sample size = 12% Net sample = Original sample - cases of over-coverage Response rate = 100% - non-response rate= 88%

Sampling error estimates

The impact of errors on data quality was reduced to a minimum due to the high efficiency and outstanding selection, training, and performance of the fieldworkers.

Procedures adopted during the fieldwork of the survey were considered a necessity to ensure the collection of accurate data, notably: 1- Develop schedules to conduct field visits to households during survey fieldwork. The objectives of the visits and the data collected on each visit were predetermined. 2- Fieldwork editing rules were applied during the data collection to ensure corrections were implemented before the end of fieldwork activities 3- Fieldworkers were instructed to provide details in cases of extreme expenditure or consumption by the household. 4- Questions on income were postponed until the final visit at the end of the month 5- Validation rules were embedded in the data processing systems, along with procedures to verify data entry and data edit.

Final product of the b-solutions project GeoConnectGR - Harmonized geodata of the hydrographic network of the Greater Region (scale 1:25.000 - 1:50.000)- Sources: LVGL Saarland, LVermGeo Rheinland-Pfalz, NGI Belgium, IGN France, ACT Luxembourg - Harmonization: Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (BKG) based on the data model Core Reference Data (CRD) developed by EuroGeographics This data is published for non-commercial uses under the licence CC BY-NC 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode

Abstract

The harmonized data set on health, created and published by the ERF, is a subset of Iraq Household Socio Economic Survey (IHSES) 2012. It was derived from the household, individual and health modules, collected in the context of the above mentioned survey. The sample was then used to create a harmonized health survey, comparable with the Iraq Household Socio Economic Survey (IHSES) 2007 micro data set.

----> Overview of the Iraq Household Socio Economic Survey (IHSES) 2012:

Iraq is considered a leader in household expenditure and income surveys where the first was conducted in 1946 followed by surveys in 1954 and 1961. After the establishment of Central Statistical Organization, household expenditure and income surveys were carried out every 3-5 years in (1971/ 1972, 1976, 1979, 1984/ 1985, 1988, 1993, 2002 / 2007). Implementing the cooperation between CSO and WB, Central Statistical Organization (CSO) and Kurdistan Region Statistics Office (KRSO) launched fieldwork on IHSES on 1/1/2012. The survey was carried out over a full year covering all governorates including those in Kurdistan Region.

The survey has six main objectives. These objectives are:

1. Provide data for poverty analysis and measurement and monitor, evaluate and update the implementation Poverty Reduction National Strategy issued in 2009.
2. Provide comprehensive data system to assess household social and economic conditions and prepare the indicators related to the human development.
3. Provide data that meet the needs and requirements of national accounts.
4. Provide detailed indicators on consumption expenditure that serve making decision related to production, consumption, export and import.
5. Provide detailed indicators on the sources of households and individuals income.
6. Provide data necessary for formulation of a new consumer price index number.

The raw survey data provided by the Statistical Office were then harmonized by the Economic Research Forum, to create a comparable version with the 2006/2007 Household Socio Economic Survey in Iraq. Harmonization at this stage only included unifying variables' names, labels and some definitions. See: Iraq 2007 & 2012- Variables Mapping & Availability Matrix.pdf provided in the external resources for further information on the mapping of the original variables on the harmonized ones, in addition to more indications on the variables' availability in both survey years and relevant comments.

Geographic coverage

National coverage: Covering a sample of urban, rural and metropolitan areas in all the governorates including those in Kurdistan Region.

Analysis unit

1- Household/family. 2- Individual/person.

Universe

The survey was carried out over a full year covering all governorates including those in Kurdistan Region.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

----> Design:

Sample size was (25488) household for the whole Iraq, 216 households for each district of 118 districts, 2832 clusters each of which includes 9 households distributed on districts and governorates for rural and urban.

----> Sample frame:

Listing and numbering results of 2009-2010 Population and Housing Survey were adopted in all the governorates including Kurdistan Region as a frame to select households, the sample was selected in two stages: Stage 1: Primary sampling unit (blocks) within each stratum (district) for urban and rural were systematically selected with probability proportional to size to reach 2832 units (cluster). Stage two: 9 households from each primary sampling unit were selected to create a cluster, thus the sample size of total survey clusters was 25488 households distributed on the governorates, 216 households in each district.

----> Sampling Stages:

In each district, the sample was selected in two stages: Stage 1: based on 2010 listing and numbering frame 24 sample points were selected within each stratum through systematic sampling with probability proportional to size, in addition to the implicit breakdown urban and rural and geographic breakdown (sub-district, quarter, street, county, village and block). Stage 2: Using households as secondary sampling units, 9 households were selected from each sample point using systematic equal probability sampling. Sampling frames of each stages can be developed based on 2010 building listing and numbering without updating household lists. In some small districts, random selection processes of primary sampling may lead to select less than 24 units therefore a sampling unit is selected more than once , the selection may reach two cluster or more from the same enumeration unit when it is necessary.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

----> Preparation:

The questionnaire of 2006 survey was adopted in designing the questionnaire of 2012 survey on which many revisions were made. Two rounds of pre-test were carried out. Revision were made based on the feedback of field work team, World Bank consultants and others, other revisions were made before final version was implemented in a pilot survey in September 2011. After the pilot survey implemented, other revisions were made in based on the challenges and feedbacks emerged during the implementation to implement the final version in the actual survey.

----> Questionnaire Parts:

The questionnaire consists of four parts each with several sections: Part 1: Socio – Economic Data: - Section 1: Household Roster - Section 2: Emigration - Section 3: Food Rations - Section 4: housing - Section 5: education - Section 6: health - Section 7: Physical measurements - Section 8: job seeking and previous job

Part 2: Monthly, Quarterly and Annual Expenditures: - Section 9: Expenditures on Non – Food Commodities and Services (past 30 days). - Section 10 : Expenditures on Non – Food Commodities and Services (past 90 days). - Section 11: Expenditures on Non – Food Commodities and Services (past 12 months). - Section 12: Expenditures on Non-food Frequent Food Stuff and Commodities (7 days). - Section 12, Table 1: Meals Had Within the Residential Unit. - Section 12, table 2: Number of Persons Participate in the Meals within Household Expenditure Other Than its Members.

Part 3: Income and Other Data: - Section 13: Job - Section 14: paid jobs - Section 15: Agriculture, forestry and fishing - Section 16: Household non – agricultural projects - Section 17: Income from ownership and transfers - Section 18: Durable goods - Section 19: Loans, advances and subsidies - Section 20: Shocks and strategy of dealing in the households - Section 21: Time use - Section 22: Justice - Section 23: Satisfaction in life - Section 24: Food consumption during past 7 days

Part 4: Diary of Daily Expenditures: Diary of expenditure is an essential component of this survey. It is left at the household to record all the daily purchases such as expenditures on food and frequent non-food items such as gasoline, newspapers…etc. during 7 days. Two pages were allocated for recording the expenditures of each day, thus the roster will be consists of 14 pages.

Cleaning operations

----> Raw Data:

Data Editing and Processing: To ensure accuracy and consistency, the data were edited at the following stages: 1. Interviewer: Checks all answers on the household questionnaire, confirming that they are clear and correct. 2. Local Supervisor: Checks to make sure that questions has been correctly completed. 3. Statistical analysis: After exporting data files from excel to SPSS, the Statistical Analysis Unit uses program commands to identify irregular or non-logical values in addition to auditing some variables. 4. World Bank consultants in coordination with the CSO data management team: the World Bank technical consultants use additional programs in SPSS and STAT to examine and correct remaining inconsistencies within the data files. The software detects errors by analyzing questionnaire items according to the expected parameter for each variable.

----> Harmonized Data:

• The SPSS package is used to harmonize the Iraq Household Socio Economic Survey (IHSES) 2007 with Iraq Household Socio Economic Survey (IHSES) 2012.
• The harmonization process starts with raw data files received from the Statistical Office.
• A program is generated for each dataset to create harmonized variables.
• Data is saved on the household and individual level, in SPSS and then converted to STATA, to be disseminated.

Response rate

Iraq Household Socio Economic Survey (IHSES) reached a total of 25488 households. Number of households refused to response was 305, response rate was 98.6%. The highest interview rates were in Ninevah and Muthanna (100%) while the lowest rates were in Sulaimaniya (92%).

We have started to retrospectively harmonize the Music Creators Earnigs survey for the the Digital Music Observatory. The survey’s raw data is accessible on the website of the UKIPO here.

Ex post harmonization will be limited, because of the following factors:

The MCE survey did not use harmonized questions in many cases

The MCE surveys answers do not cover a full range of possible answers

The MCE survey does not appear to represent the UK artists and music professionals.

Because of the bias of the survey, we did not include statistical indicators of the survey yet in our observatory, and we will make further processing steps in later versions of the data file.

Nevertheless, because of the relatively large sample size (n=708) we believe that imporant comparisons can be made with our CEEMID surveys, and we can shed some light on the earnings distribution of UK artists, and the way they distribute and finance their recordings.

Abstract

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED

Between February and March 2016, the World Bank, in collaboration with Somali statistical authorities conducted the first wave of the Somali High Frequency Survey to monitor welfare and perceptions of citizens in all accessible areas of 9 regions within Somalia's pre-war borders including Somaliland which self-declared independence in 1991. The survey interviewed 2,882 urban households, 822 rural and 413 households in Internally Displaced People (IDP) settlements. The sample was drawn randomly based on a multi-level clustered design. This dataset contains information on economic conditions, education, employment, access to services, security and perceptions. It also includes comprehensive information on assets and consumption, to allow estimation of poverty based on the Rapid Consumption methodology as detailed in Pape and Mistiaen (2014).

The raw survey data provided by the Statistical Agency were cleaned and harmonized by the Economic Research Forum, in the context of a major project that started in 2009. During which extensive efforts have been exerted to acquire, clean, harmonize, preserve and disseminate micro data of existing household surveys in several Arab countries.

Geographic coverage

Covering a sample of urban, rural and IDP settlements areas in all the governorates.

Analysis unit

1- Household/family. 2- Individual/person.

Universe

The survey covered a national sample of households and all individuals permanently residing in surveyed households.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED

The sample employs a stratified two-staged clustered design with the Primary Sampling Unit (PSU) being the enumeration area. Within each enumeration area, 12 households were selected for interviews.

Two different listing approaches were used. In 2 strata with more volatile security as well as for IDP camps, a multi-stage cluster design was employed (micro-listing). Each selected enumeration area was divided into multiple segments and each segment was further divided into blocks. Within each enumeration area, one segment was randomly selected and within the segment 12 blocks were chosen. In each block, all structures were listed before selecting randomly one structure. Within the selected structure, all households were listed and one household randomly selected for interview. In strata less volatile (14 strata), the complete enumeration area was listed before 12 households were randomly selected for interviews (full-listing).

Sampling deviation

EAs were replaced if security rendered field work unfeasible. Replacements were approved by the project manager. Replacement of households were approved by the supervisor after a total of three unsuccessful visits of the household.

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Personal Interview [capi]

Research instrument

Questionnaire Modules - Household Roster (110 questions) - Household Characteristics (38 questions) - Consumption - Food (30 questions per item) - Non-Food (14 questions per item) - Livestock (39 questions per item) - Durables (16 questions per item) - Perception (24 questions) - Food Security* (24 questions) - Income and Remittances* (14 questions) - Household Enterprise* (172 questions) - Shocks* (15 questions)

Cleaning operations

----> Harmonized Data

• The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) is used to clean and harmonize the datasets.
• The harmonization process starts with cleaning all raw data files received from the Statistical Agency.
• Cleaned data files are then all merged to produce one data file on the individual level containing all variables subject to harmonization.
• A country-specific program is generated for each dataset to generate/compute /recode/rename/format/label harmonized variables.
• A post-harmonization cleaning process is then conducted on the data.
• Harmonized data is saved on the household as well as the individual level, in SPSS and converted to STATA format.

Response rate

For the survey sample, the response rate was 95.9% (92.8% in urban areas and 98.5% in rural areas).

Abstract

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE CENTRAL AGENCY FOR PUBLIC MOBILIZATION AND STATISTICS (CAPMAS)

In any society, the human element represents the basis of the work force which exercises all the service and production activities. Therefore, it is a mandate to produce labor force statistics and studies, that is related to the growth and distribution of manpower and labor force distribution by different types and characteristics.

In this context, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics conducts "Quarterly Labor Force Survey" which includes data on the size of manpower and labor force (employed and unemployed) and their geographical distribution by their characteristics.

By the end of each year, CAPMAS issues the annual aggregated labor force bulletin publication that includes the results of the quarterly survey rounds that represent the manpower and labor force characteristics during the year.

Historical Review of the Labor Force Survey:

1- The First Labor Force survey was undertaken in 1957. The first round was conducted in November of that year, the survey continued to be conducted in successive rounds (quarterly, bi-annually, or annually) till now.

2- Starting the October 2006 round, the fieldwork of the labor force survey was developed to focus on the following two points: a. The importance of using the panel sample that is part of the survey sample, to monitor the dynamic changes of the labor market. b. Improving the used questionnaire to include more questions, that help in better defining of relationship to labor force of each household member (employed, unemployed, out of labor force ...etc.). In addition to re-order of some of the already existing questions in much logical way.

3- Starting the January 2008 round, the used methodology was developed to collect more representative sample during the survey year. this is done through distributing the sample of each governorate into five groups, the questionnaires are collected from each of them separately every 15 days for 3 months (in the middle and the end of the month)

4- Starting the January 2012 round, in order to follow the international recommendation, to avoid asking extra questions that affect the precision and accuracy of the collected data, a shortened version of the questionnaire was designed to include the core questions that enable obtaining the basic Egyptian labor market indicators. The shortened version is collected in two rounds (January-March), (April-June), and (October-December) while the long version of the questionnaire is collected in the 3rd round (July-September) that includes more information on housing conditions and immigration.

The survey aims at covering the following topics:

1- Measuring the size of the Egyptian labor force among civilians (for all governorates of the republic) by their different characteristics. 2- Measuring the employment rate at national level and different geographical areas. 3- Measuring the distribution of employed people by the following characteristics: Gender, age, educational status, occupation, economic activity, and sector. 4- Measuring unemployment rate at different geographic areas. 5- Measuring the distribution of unemployed people by the following characteristics: Gender, age, educational status, unemployment type “ever employed/never employed”, occupation, economic activity, and sector for people who have ever worked.

The raw survey data provided by the Statistical Agency were cleaned and harmonized by the Economic Research Forum, in the context of a major project that started in 2009. During which extensive efforts have been exerted to acquire, clean, harmonize, preserve and disseminate micro data of existing labor force surveys in several Arab countries.

Geographic coverage

Covering a sample of urban and rural areas in all the governorates.

Analysis unit

1- Household/family. 2- Individual/person.

Universe

The survey covered a national sample of households and all individuals permanently residing in surveyed households.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE CENTRAL AGENCY FOR PUBLIC MOBILIZATION AND STATISTICS (CAPMAS)

Sample Design and Selection

The sample of the LFS 2013 survey is a self-weighted two-stage stratified cluster sample. The main elements of the sampling design are described as follows:

• Sample Size The sample size in each quarter is 23,864 households with a total number of 95,456 households annually. These households are distributed on the governorate level (urban/rural), according to the estimated number of households in each governorate in accordance with the percentage of urban and rural population in each governorate.

• Cluster size The cluster size is 19 households.

• Sampling stages:

  A- First stage sample

  (1) Primary Sampling Unit (PSU): The 2006 Population Census provided sufficient data at the level of the Enumeration Area (EA). Hence, the electronic list of EA's represented the frame of the first stage sample; in which the corresponding number of households per EA was taken as a measure of size. The size of an EA is almost 200 households on average, with some variability expected. The size of first stage national sample was estimated to be 5,024 EA.

  (2) Sample Distribution by Governorate: The primary stratifying variable is the governorate of residence, which in turn is divided into urban and rural sub-strata, whenever applicable.

  (3) First Stage Sample frame: The census lists of EAs for each substratum, associated with the corresponding number of households, constitute the frame of the first stage sample. The identification information appears on the EA's list includes the District code, Shiakha/Village code, Census Supervisor number, and Enumerator number. Prior to the selection of the first stage sample, the frame was arranged to provide implicit stratification with regard to the geographic location. The urban frame of each governorate was ordered in a serpentine fashion according to the geographic location of kism/ district capitals. The same sort of ordering was made on the rural frame, but according to the district location. The systematic selection of EA's sample from such a sorted frame will ensure a balanced spread of the sample over the area of respective governorates. The sample was selected with Probability Proportional to Size (PPS), with the number of census households taken as a Measure of Size (MOS).

  (4) Core Sample allocation The core sample EAs (5,024) were divided among the survey 4 rounds, each round included 1,256 EAs (573 in urban areas and 683 in rural areas).

  B- Second Stage Sample:

  This is the final stage sample and was implemented in 2 stages: 1- Selection of the New sample 2- Selection of the panel sample

A more detailed description of the different sampling stages and allocation of sample across governorates is provided in the Methodology document available among external resources in Arabic.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The questionnaire design follows the latest International Labor Organization (ILO) concepts and definitions of labor force, employment, and unemployment.

The questionnaire comprises 4 tables in addition to the identification and geographic data of household on the cover page.

Table 1- The housing conditions of the households

This table includes information on the housing conditions of the household: - Type of the dwelling, - Tenure of the dwelling (owned/rent) , - Availability of facilities and services connected to the house - Ownership of durables.

Table 2- Demographic and employment characteristics and basic data for all household individuals

Including: gender, age, educational status, marital status, residence mobility and current work status

Table 3- Employment characteristics table

This table is filled by employed individuals at the time of the survey or those who were engaged to work during the reference week, and provided information on: - Relationship to employer: employer, self-employed, waged worker, and unpaid family worker - Economic activity - Sector - Occupation - Effective working hours - Health and social insurance - Work place - Contract type - Average monthly wage

Table 4- Unemployment characteristics table

This table is filled by all unemployed individuals who satisfied the unemployment criteria, and provided information on: - Type of unemployment (unemployed, unemployed ever worked) - Economic activity and occupation in the last held job before being unemployed - Last unemployment duration in months - Main reason for unemployment

Cleaning operations

Raw Data

Office editing is one of the main stages of the survey. It started once the questionnaires were received from the field and accomplished by the selected work groups. It includes: a-Editing of coverage and completeness b-Editing of consistency

Harmonized Data

• The SPSS package is used to clean and

Abstract

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE PALESTINIAN CENTRAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS

The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) carried out four rounds of the Labor Force Survey 2012 (LFS). The survey rounds covered a total sample of about 30,887 households, and the number of completed questionaire is 26,898.

The main objective of collecting data on the labour force and its components, including employment, unemployment and underemployment, is to provide basic information on the size and structure of the Palestinian labour force. Data collected at different points in time provide a basis for monitoring current trends and changes in the labour market and in the employment situation. These data, supported with information on other aspects of the economy, provide a basis for the evaluation and analysis of macro-economic policies.

The raw survey data provided by the Statistical Agency were cleaned and harmonized by the Economic Research Forum, in the context of a major project that started in 2009. During which extensive efforts have been exerted to acquire, clean, harmonize, preserve and disseminate micro data of existing labor force surveys in several Arab countries.

Geographic coverage

Covering a representative sample on the region level (West Bank, Gaza Strip), the locality type (urban, rural, camp) and the governorates.

Analysis unit

1- Household/family. 2- Individual/person.

Universe

The survey covered all Palestinian households who are a usual residence of the Palestinian Territory.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE PALESTINIAN CENTRAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS

The methodology was designed according to the context of the survey, international standards, data processing requirements and comparability of outputs with other related surveys.

---> Target Population: It consists of all individuals aged 10 years and older normally residing in their households in Palestine during 2012.

---> Sampling Frame: The sampling frame consists of the master sample, which was updated in 2011: each enumeration area consists of buildings and housing units with an average of about 124 households. The master sample consists of 596 enumeration areas; we used 498 enumeration areas as a framework for the labor force survey sample in 2012 and these units were used as primary sampling units (PSUs).

---> Sampling Size: The estimated sample size in the first quarter was 7,775 households, in the second quarter it was 7,713 households, in the third quarter it was 7,695 households and in the fourth quarter it was 7,704 households.

---> Sample Design The sample is two stage stratified cluster sample with two stages : First stage: we select a systematic random sample of 498 enumeration areas for the whole round ,and we excluded the enumeration areas which its sizes less than 40 households. Second stage: we select a systematic random sample of 16 households from each enumeration area selected in the first stage, se we select a systematic random of 16 households of the enumeration areas which its size is 80 household and over and the enumeration areas which its size is less than 80 households we select systematic random of 8 households.

---> Sample strata: The population was divided by: 1- Governorate (16 governorate) 2- Type of Locality (urban, rural, refugee camps).

---> Sample Rotation: Each round of the Labor Force Survey covers all of the 498 master sample enumeration areas. Basically, the areas remain fixed over time, but households in 50% of the EAs were replaced in each round. The same households remain in the sample for two consecutive rounds, left for the next two rounds, then selected for the sample for another two consecutive rounds before being dropped from the sample. An overlap of 50% is then achieved between both consecutive rounds and between consecutive years (making the sample efficient for monitoring purposes).

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The survey questionnaire was designed according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) recommendations. The questionnaire includes four main parts:

---> 1. Identification Data: The main objective for this part is to record the necessary information to identify the household, such as, cluster code, sector, type of locality, cell, housing number and the cell code.

---> 2. Quality Control: This part involves groups of controlling standards to monitor the field and office operation, to keep in order the sequence of questionnaire stages (data collection, field and office coding, data entry, editing after entry and store the data.

---> 3. Household Roster: This part involves demographic characteristics about the household, like number of persons in the household, date of birth, sex, educational level…etc.

---> 4. Employment Part: This part involves the major research indicators, where one questionnaire had been answered by every 15 years and over household member, to be able to explore their labour force status and recognize their major characteristics toward employment status, economic activity, occupation, place of work, and other employment indicators.

Cleaning operations

---> Raw Data The data processing stage consisted of the following operations: 1. Editing and coding before data entry: All questionnaires were edited and coded in the office using the same instructions adopted for editing in the field. 2. Data entry: At this stage, data was entered into the computer using a data entry template designed in Access. The data entry program was prepared to satisfy a number of requirements such as: - Duplication of the questionnaires on the computer screen. - Logical and consistency check of data entered. - Possibility for internal editing of question answers. - Maintaining a minimum of digital data entry and fieldwork errors. - User friendly handling. Possibility of transferring data into another format to be used and analyzed using other statistical analytic systems such as SPSS.

---> Harmonized Data - The SPSS package is used to clean and harmonize the datasets. - The harmonization process starts with a cleaning process for all raw data files received from the Statistical Agency. - All cleaned data files are then merged to produce one data file on the individual level containing all variables subject to harmonization. - A country-specific program is generated for each dataset to generate/ compute/ recode/ rename/ format/ label harmonized variables. - A post-harmonization cleaning process is then conducted on the data. - Harmonized data is saved on the household as well as the individual level, in SPSS and then converted to STATA, to be disseminated.

Response rate

The survey sample consists of 30,887 households, of which 26,898 households completed the interview: 17,594 households from the West Bank and 9,304 households in Gaza Strip. Weights were modified to account for the non-response rate. The response rate in the West Bank was 90.2 %, while in the Gaza Strip it was 94.7%.

Sampling error estimates

---> Sampling Errors Data of this survey may be affected by sampling errors due to use of a sample and not a complete enumeration. Therefore, certain differences can be expected in comparison with the real values obtained through censuses. Variances were calculated for the most important indicators: the variance table is attached with the final report. There is no problem in disseminating results at national or governorate level for the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

---> Non-Sampling Errors Non-statistical errors are probable in all stages of the project, during data collection or processing. This is referred to as non-response errors, response errors, interviewing errors, and data entry errors. To avoid errors and reduce their effects, great efforts were made to train the fieldworkers intensively. They were trained on how to carry out the interview, what to discuss and what to avoid, carrying out a pilot survey, as well as practical and theoretical training during the training course. Also data entry staff were trained on the data entry program that was examined before starting the data entry process. To stay in contact with progress of fieldwork activities and to limit obstacles, there was continuous contact with the fieldwork team through regular visits to the field and regular meetings with them during the different field visits. Problems faced by fieldworkers were discussed to clarify any issues. Non-sampling errors can occur at the various stages of survey implementation whether in data collection or in data processing. They are generally difficult to be evaluated statistically.

They cover a wide range of errors, including errors resulting from non-response, sampling frame coverage, coding and classification, data processing, and survey response (both respondent and interviewer-related). The use of effective training and supervision and the careful design of questions have direct bearing on limiting the magnitude of non-sampling errors, and hence enhancing the quality of the resulting data. The implementation of the survey encountered non-response where the case ( household was not present at home ) during the fieldwork visit

Abstract

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE CENTRAL AGENCY FOR PUBLIC MOBILIZATION AND STATISTICS (CAPMAS)

In any society, the human element represents the basis of the work force which exercises all the service and production activities. Therefore, it is a mandate to produce labor force statistics and studies, that is related to the growth and distribution of manpower and labor force distribution by different types and characteristics.

In this context, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics conducts "Quarterly Labor Force Survey" which includes data on the size of manpower and labor force (employed and unemployed) and their geographical distribution by their characteristics.

By the end of each year, CAPMAS issues the annual aggregated labor force bulletin publication that includes the results of the quarterly survey rounds that represent the manpower and labor force characteristics during the year.

---> Historical Review of the Labor Force Survey:

1- The First Labor Force survey was undertaken in 1957. The first round was conducted in November of that year, the survey continued to be conducted in successive rounds (quarterly, bi-annually, or annually) till now.

2- Starting the October 2006 round, the fieldwork of the labor force survey was developed to focus on the following two points: a. The importance of using the panel sample that is part of the survey sample, to monitor the dynamic changes of the labor market. b. Improving the used questionnaire to include more questions, that help in better defining of relationship to labor force of each household member (employed, unemployed, out of labor force ...etc.). In addition to re-order of some of the already existing questions in much logical way.

3- Starting the January 2008 round, the used methodology was developed to collect more representative sample during the survey year. this is done through distributing the sample of each governorate into five groups, the questionnaires are collected from each of them separately every 15 days for 3 months (in the middle and the end of the month)

4- Starting the January 2012 round, in order to follow the international recommendation, to avoid asking extra questions that affect the precision and accuracy of the collected data, a shortened version of the questionnaire was designed to include the core questions that enable obtaining the basic Egyptian labor market indicators. The shortened version is collected in two rounds (January-March), (April-June), and (October-December) while the long version of the questionnaire is collected in the 3rd round (July-September) that includes more information on housing conditions and immigration.

---> The survey aims at covering the following topics:

1- Measuring the size of the Egyptian labor force among civilians (for all governorates of the republic) by their different characteristics. 2- Measuring the employment rate at national level and different geographical areas. 3- Measuring the distribution of employed people by the following characteristics: Gender, age, educational status, occupation, economic activity, and sector. 4- Measuring unemployment rate at different geographic areas. 5- Measuring the distribution of unemployed people by the following characteristics: Gender, age, educational status, unemployment type “ever employed/never employed”, occupation, economic activity, and sector for people who have ever worked.

The raw survey data provided by the Statistical Agency were cleaned and harmonized by the Economic Research Forum, in the context of a major project that started in 2009. During which extensive efforts have been exerted to acquire, clean, harmonize, preserve and disseminate micro data of existing labor force surveys in several Arab countries.

Geographic coverage

Covering a sample of urban and rural areas in all the governorates.

Analysis unit

1- Household/family. 2- Individual/person.

Universe

The survey covered a national sample of households and all individuals permanently residing in surveyed households.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

THE CLEANED AND HARMONIZED VERSION OF THE SURVEY DATA PRODUCED AND PUBLISHED BY THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH FORUM REPRESENTS 100% OF THE ORIGINAL SURVEY DATA COLLECTED BY THE CENTRAL AGENCY FOR PUBLIC MOBILIZATION AND STATISTICS (CAPMAS)

---> Sample Design and Selection

The sample of the LFS 2017 survey is a self-weighted two-stage stratified cluster sample. The main elements of the sampling design are described as follows:

• Sample Size The sample size in each quarter is 22,896 households with a total number of 91,584 households annually. These households are distributed on the governorate level (urban/rural), according to the estimated number of households in each governorate in accordance with the percentage of urban and rural population in each governorate.

• Cluster size The cluster size is 18 households.

• Sampling stages:

  (1) Primary Sampling Unit (PSU): The 2006 Population Census provided sufficient data at the level of the Enumeration Area (EA). Hence, the electronic list of EA's represented the frame of the first stage sample; in which the corresponding number of households per EA was taken as a measure of size. The size of an EA is almost 200 households on average, with some variability expected. The size of first stage national sample was estimated to be 5,024 EA.

  (2) Sample Distribution by Governorate: The primary stratifying variable is the governorate of residence, which in turn is divided into urban and rural sub-strata, whenever applicable.

  (3) First Stage Sample frame: The census lists of EAs for each substratum, associated with the corresponding number of households, constitute the frame of the first stage sample. The identification information appears on the EA's list includes the District code, Shiakha/Village code, Census Supervisor number, and Enumerator number. Prior to the selection of the first stage sample, the frame was arranged to provide implicit stratification with regard to the geographic location. The urban frame of each governorate was ordered in a serpentine fashion according to the geographic location of kism/ district capitals. The same sort of ordering was made on the rural frame, but according to the district location. The systematic selection of EA's sample from such a sorted frame will ensure a balanced spread of the sample over the area of respective governorates. The sample was selected with Probability Proportional to Size (PPS), with the number of census households taken as a Measure of Size (MOS).

  (4) Core Sample allocation The core sample EAs (5,024) were divided among the survey 4 rounds, each round included 1,272 EAs (585 in urban areas and 687 in rural areas).

A more detailed description of the different sampling stages and allocation of sample across governorates is provided in the Methodology document available among external resources in Arabic.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The questionnaire design follows the latest International Labor Organization (ILO) concepts and definitions of labor force, employment, and unemployment.

The questionnaire comprises 4 tables in addition to the identification and geographic data of household on the cover page.

---> Table 1- The housing conditions of the households

This table includes information on the housing conditions of the household: - Type of the dwelling, - Tenure of the dwelling (owned/rent) , - Availability of facilities and services connected to the house - Ownership of durables.

---> Table 2- Demographic and employment characteristics and basic data for all household individuals

Including: gender, age, educational status, marital status, residence mobility and current work status

---> Table 3- Employment characteristics table

This table is filled by employed individuals at the time of the survey or those who were engaged to work during the reference week, and provided information on: - Relationship to employer: employer, self-employed, waged worker, and unpaid family worker - Economic activity - Sector - Occupation - Effective working hours - Health and social insurance - Work place - Contract type - Average monthly wage

---> Table 4- Unemployment characteristics table

This table is filled by all unemployed individuals who satisfied the unemployment criteria, and provided information on: - Type of unemployment (unemployed, unemployed ever worked) - Economic activity and occupation in the last held job before being unemployed - Last unemployment duration in months - Main reason for unemployment

Cleaning operations

---> Raw Data

Office editing is one of the main stages of the survey. It started once the questionnaires were received from the field and accomplished by the selected work groups. It includes: a-Editing of coverage and completeness b-Editing of consistency

---> Harmonized Data

• The SPSS package is used to clean and harmonize the datasets.
• The harmonization process starts with a cleaning process for all raw data files received from the Statistical Agency.
• All cleaned data files are then merged to produce one data file on the individual level containing all variables subject to harmonization.
• A country-specific program is generated for each dataset to generate/ compute/ recode/ rename/ format/ label harmonized variables.
• A

Abstract

To better understand the impact of the shock induced by the COVID-19 pandemic on micro and small enterprises in Tunisia and assess the policy responses in a rapidly changing context, reliable data is imperative, and the need to resort to a dynamic data collection tool at a time when countries in the region are in a state of flux cannot be overstated. The COVID-19 MENA Monitor Survey was led by the Economic Research Forum (ERF) to provide data for researchers and policy makers on the economic and labor market impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic on enterprises.

The ERF COVID-19 MENA Monitor Survey is constructed using a series of short panel phone surveys, that are conducted approximately every two months, and it will cover business closure (temporary/permanent) due to lockdowns, ability to telework/deliver the service, disruptions to supply chains (for inputs and outputs), loss of product markets, increased cost of supplies, worker layoffs, salary adjustments, access to lines of credit and delays in transportation. Understanding the strategies of enterprises (particularly micro and small enterprises) to cope with the crisis is one of the main objectives of this survey. Specific constraints such as weak access to the internet in some areas or laws constraining goods' delivery will be analyzed. Enterprise owners will also be asked about prospects for the future, including ability to stay open, and whether they benefited from any measures to support their businesses. The ERF COVID-19 MENA Monitor Survey is a wide-ranging, nationally representative panel survey. The wave 2 of this dataset was collected from June to July 2021 and harmonized by the Economic Research Forum (ERF) and is featured as data for enterprise data. The survey is in the process of further expansion to include other waves. The harmonization was designed to create comparable data that can facilitate cross-country and comparative research between other Arab countries (Morocco, Egypt and Jordan). All the COVID-19 MENA Monitor surveys incorporate similar survey designs, with data on enterprises within Arab countries (Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, and Morocco).

Geographic coverage

National

Analysis unit

Enterprises

Universe

The sample universe for the enterprise survey was enterprises that had 6-199 workers pre-COVID-19

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The sample universe for the firm survey was firms that had 6-199 workers pre-COVID-19. Stratified random samples were used to ensure adequate sample size in key strata. A target of 500 firms was set as a sample. Up to Five attempts were made to ensure response if a phone number was not picked up/answered, was disconnected or busy, or picked up but could not complete the interview at that time. After the fifth failed attempt, a firm was treated as a non-response and a random firm from the same stratum was used as an alternate.

Use the National Institute of Statistics (INS) and Agency for the Promotion of Industry and Innovation (APII) databases as follow: o Tunisia did not have a Yellow Pages or similar database, so administrative/statistics data sources had to be used o The sample started with the INS frame with 1,238 enterprises with 6-200 wage employees § Enterprises were stratified into: (1) Agriculture (2) Industry (3) Construction (4) Trade (5) Accommodation (6) Service § Enterprises were also stratified by size in terms of 6-49 versus 50-200 employees § A random stratified sample (order) was selected § Further restricted to enterprises with 6-199 workers in February 2020 based on an eligibility question during the phone interview § This sample frame was eventually exhausted o After the INS sample was exhausted, the APII sample was used § APII only covered enterprises with 10+ workers § APII only covered (1) services & transport, and (2) industry o Weights are based on the underlying data on all enterprises from INS, specifically: Entreprises privées selon l'activité principale et la tranche de salariés (RNE 2019). § We ultimately stratify the Tunisia weights by industry and enterprises sized: 6-9 employees (since APII only covered 10+), 10-49, and 50-199

Mode of data collection

Computer Assisted Telephone Interview [cati]

Research instrument

The enterprise questionnaire is carried out to understand the strategies of enterprises -particularly micro and small enterprises- to cope with the crisis as well as related constraints and prospects for the future. It includes questions on business closure (temporary/permanent) due to lockdowns, ability to telework/deliver the service, disruptions to supply chains (for inputs and outputs), loss of product markets, increased cost of supplies, worker layoffs, salary adjustments, access to lines of credit and delays in transportation.

Note: The questionnaire can be seen in the documentation materials tab.

Abstract

The basic goal of this survey is to provide the necessary database for formulating national policies at various levels. It represents the contribution of the household sector to the Gross National Product (GNP). Household Surveys help as well in determining the incidence of poverty, and providing weighted data which reflects the relative importance of the consumption items to be employed in determining the benchmark for rates and prices of items and services. Generally, the Household Expenditure and Consumption Survey is a fundamental cornerstone in the process of studying the nutritional status in the Palestinian territory.

The raw survey data provided by the Statistical Office was cleaned and harmonized by the Economic Research Forum, in the context of a major research project to develop and expand knowledge on equity and inequality in the Arab region. The main focus of the project is to measure the magnitude and direction of change in inequality and to understand the complex contributing social, political and economic forces influencing its levels. However, the measurement and analysis of the magnitude and direction of change in this inequality cannot be consistently carried out without harmonized and comparable micro-level data on income and expenditures. Therefore, one important component of this research project is securing and harmonizing household surveys from as many countries in the region as possible, adhering to international statistics on household living standards distribution. Once the dataset has been compiled, the Economic Research Forum makes it available, subject to confidentiality agreements, to all researchers and institutions concerned with data collection and issues of inequality. Data is a public good, in the interest of the region, and it is consistent with the Economic Research Forum's mandate to make micro data available, aiding regional research on this important topic.

Geographic coverage

The survey data covers urban, rural and camp areas in West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Analysis unit

1- Household/families. 2- Individuals.

Universe

The survey covered all the Palestinian households who are a usual residence in the Palestinian Territory.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

Sample and Frame:

The sampling frame consists of all enumeration areas which enumerated in 1997 and the numeration area consists of buildings and housing units and has in average about 150 households in it. We use the enumeration areas as primary sampling units PSUs in the first stage of the sampling selection. The enumeration areas of the master sample were updated in 2003.

Sample Design:

The sample is stratified cluster systematic random sample with two stages: The calculated sample size is 1,616 households, the completed households were 1,281 (847 in the west bank and 434 in the Gaza strip). First stage: selection a systematic random sample of 120 enumeration areas. Second stage: selection a systematic random sample of 12-18 households from each enumeration area selected in the first stage.

Sample strata:

We divided the population by: 1- Region (North West Bank, Middle West Bank, South West Bank, Gaza Strip) 2- Type of Locality (urban, rural, refugee camps)

Target cluster size:

The target cluster size or "sample-take" is the average number of households to be selected per PSU. In this survey, the sample take is around 12 households.

Sample Size:

The calculated sample size is 1,616 households, the completed households were 1,281 (847 in the west bank and 434 in the Gaza strip).

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The PECS questionnaire consists of two main sections:

First section: Certain articles / provisions of the form filled at the beginning of the month, and the remainder filled out at the end of the month. The questionnaire includes the following provisions:

Cover sheet: It contains detailed and particulars of the family, date of visit, particular of the field/office work team, number/sex of the family members.

Statement of the family members: Contains social, economic and demographic particulars of the selected family.

Statement of the long-lasting commodities and income generation activities: Includes a number of basic and indispensable items (i.e., Livestock, or agricultural lands).

Housing Characteristics: Includes information and data pertaining to the housing conditions, including type of house, number of rooms, ownership, rent, water, electricity supply, connection to the sewer system, source of cooking and heating fuel, and remoteness/proximity of the house to education and health facilities.

Monthly and Annual Income: Data pertaining to the income of the family is collected from different sources at the end of the registration / recording period.

Assistance and poverty: includes questions about household conditions and assistances that got through the the past month.

Second section: The second section of the questionnaire includes a list of 55 consumption and expenditure groups itemized and serially numbered according to its importance to the family. Each of these groups contains important commodities. The number of commodities items in each for all groups stood at 667 commodities and services items. Groups 1-21 include food, drink, and cigarettes. Group 22 includes homemade commodities. Groups 23-45 include all items except for food, drink and cigarettes. Groups 50-55 include all of the long-lasting commodities. Data on each of these groups was collected over different intervals of time so as to reflect expenditure over a period of one full year, except the cars group the data of which was collected for three previous years. These data was abotained from the recording book which is covered a period of month for each household.

Cleaning operations

Raw Data

Data editing took place though a number of stages, including: 1. Office editing and coding 2. Data entry 3. Structure checking and completeness 4. Structural checking of SPSS data files

Harmonized Data

• The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) is used to clean and harmonize the datasets.
• The harmonization process starts with cleaning all raw data files received from the Statistical Office.
• Cleaned data files are then all merged to produce one data file on the individual level containing all variables subject to harmonization.
• A country-specific program is generated for each dataset to generate/compute/recode/rename/format/label harmonized variables.
• A post-harmonization cleaning process is run on the data.
• Harmonized data is saved on the household as well as the individual level, in SPSS and converted to STATA format.

Response rate

The survey sample consists of about 1,616 households interviewed over a twelve months period between (January 2006-January 2007), 1,281 households completed interview, of which 847 in the West Bank and 434 household in Gaza Strip, the response rate was 79.3% in the Palestinian Territory.

Sampling error estimates

Generally, surveys samples are exposed to two types of errors. The statistical errors, being the first type, result from studying a part of a certain society and not including all its sections. And since the Household Expenditure and Consumption Surveys are conducted using a sample method, statistical errors are then unavoidable. Therefore, a potential sample using a suitable design has been employed whereby each unit of the society has a high chance of selection. Upon calculating the rate of bias in this survey, it appeared that the data is of high quality. The second type of errors is the non-statistical errors that relate to the design of the survey, mechanisms of data collection, and management and analysis of data. Members of the work commission were trained on all possible mechanisms to tackle such potential problems, as well as on how to address cases in which there were no responses (representing 9.6%).

Abstract

The basic goal of this survey is to provide the necessary database for formulating national policies at various levels. It represents the contribution of the household sector to the Gross National Product (GNP). Household Surveys help as well in determining the incidence of poverty, and providing weighted data which reflects the relative importance of the consumption items to be employed in determining the benchmark for rates and prices of items and services. Generally, the Household Expenditure and Consumption Survey is a fundamental cornerstone in the process of studying the nutritional status in the Palestinian territory.

The raw survey data provided by the Statistical Office was cleaned and harmonized by the Economic Research Forum, in the context of a major research project to develop and expand knowledge on equity and inequality in the Arab region. The main focus of the project is to measure the magnitude and direction of change in inequality and to understand the complex contributing social, political and economic forces influencing its levels. However, the measurement and analysis of the magnitude and direction of change in this inequality cannot be consistently carried out without harmonized and comparable micro-level data on income and expenditures. Therefore, one important component of this research project is securing and harmonizing household surveys from as many countries in the region as possible, adhering to international statistics on household living standards distribution. Once the dataset has been compiled, the Economic Research Forum makes it available, subject to confidentiality agreements, to all researchers and institutions concerned with data collection and issues of inequality. Data is a public good, in the interest of the region, and it is consistent with the Economic Research Forum's mandate to make micro data available, aiding regional research on this important topic.

Geographic coverage

The survey data covers urban, rural and camp areas in West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Analysis unit

1- Household/families. 2- Individuals.

Universe

The survey covered all the Palestinian households who are a usual residence in the Palestinian Territory.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

Sample and Frame:

The sampling frame consists of all enumeration areas which enumerated in 1997 and the numeration area consists of buildings and housing units and has in average about 150 households in it. We use the enumeration areas as primary sampling units PSUs in the first stage of the sampling selection. The enumeration areas of the master sample were updated in 2003.

Sample Design:

The sample is stratified cluster systematic random sample with two stages: First stage: selection a systematic random sample of 120 enumeration areas. Second stage: selection a systematic random sample of 12-18 households from each enumeration area selected in the first stage.

Sample strata:

The population is divided by: 1-Region (North West Bank, Middle West Bank, South West Bank, Gaza Strip) 2-Type of Locality (urban, rural, refugee camps)

Target cluster size:

The target cluster size or "sample-take" is the average number of households to be selected per PSU. In this survey, the sample take is around 12 households.

Sample Size:

The calculated sample size is 1,714 households, the completed households were 1,231 (812 in the west bank and 419 in the Gaza strip).

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The PECS questionnaire consists of two main sections:

First section: Certain articles / provisions of the form filled at the beginning of the month, and the remainder filled out at the end of the month. The questionnaire includes the following provisions:

Cover sheet: It contains detailed and particulars of the family, date of visit, particular of the field/office work team, number/sex of the family members.

Statement of the family members: Contains social, economic and demographic particulars of the selected family.

Statement of the long-lasting commodities and income generation activities: Includes a number of basic and indispensable items (i.e., Livestock, or agricultural lands).

Housing Characteristics: Includes information and data pertaining to the housing conditions, including type of shelter, number of rooms, ownership, rent, water, electricity supply, connection to the sewer system, source of cooking and heating fuel, and remoteness/proximity of the house to education and health facilities.

Monthly and Annual Income: Data pertaining to the income of the family is collected from different sources at the end of the registration / recording period.

Assistance and poverty: includes questions about household conditions and assistances that got through the the past month.

Second section: The second section of the questionnaire includes a list of 55 consumption and expenditure groups itemized and serially numbered according to its importance to the family. Each of these groups contains important commodities. The number of commodities items in each for all groups stood at 667 commodities and services items. Groups 1-21 include food, drink, and cigarettes. Group 22 includes homemade commodities. Groups 23-45 include all items except for food, drink and cigarettes. Groups 50-55 include all of the long-lasting commodities. Data on each of these groups was collected over different intervals of time so as to reflect expenditure over a period of one full year, except the cars group the data of which was collected for three previous years. These data was abotained from the recording book which is covered a period of month for each household.

Cleaning operations

Raw Data

Data editing took place through a number of stages, including: 1. Office editing and coding 2. Data entry 3. Structure checking and completeness 4. Structural checking of SPSS data files

Harmonized Data

• The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) is used to clean and harmonize the datasets.
• The harmonization process starts with cleaning all raw data files received from the Statistical Office.
• Cleaned data files are then all merged to produce one data file on the individual level containing all variables subject to harmonization.
• A country-specific program is generated for each dataset to generate/compute/recode/rename/format/label harmonized variables.
• A post-harmonization cleaning process is run on the data.
• Harmonized data is saved on the household as well as the individual level, in SPSS and converted to STATA format.

Response rate

The survey sample consists of about 1,714 households interviewed over a twelve months period between (January 2007-January 2008).1,231 households completed the interview, of which 812 were from the West Bank and 419 households in Gaza Strip; the response rate was 71.8% in the Palestinian Territory.

Sampling error estimates

The calculations of standard errors for the main survey estimates enable the user to identify the accuracy of estimates and the survey reliability. Total errors of the survey can be divided into two kinds: statistical errors, and non-statistical errors. Non-statistical errors are related to the procedures of statistical work at different stages, such as the failure to explain questions in the questionnaire, unwillingness or inability to provide correct responses, bad statistical coverage, etc. These errors depend on the nature of the work, training, supervision, and conducting of all the various related activities. The work team spared no effort at the different stages to minimize non-statistical errors; however, it is difficult to estimate numerically such errors due to absence of technical computation methods based on theoretical principles to tackle them. On the other hand, statistical errors can be measured. Frequently they are measured by the standard error, which is the positive square root of the variance. The variance of this survey has been computed by using the "programming package" CENVAR

Data appraisal

The impact of errors on the data quality was reduced to the minimal due to the high efficiency and outstanding selection, training, and performance of the fieldworkers. Procedures adopted during the fieldwork of the survey were considered a necessity to ensure the collection of accurate data, notably: 1) Develop schedules to conduct field visits to households during survey fieldwork. The objectives of the visits and the data that is collected on each visit were predetermined. 2) Fieldwork editing rules were applied during the data collection to ensure corrections were implemented before the end of fieldwork activities 3) Fieldworker were instructed to provide details in case of extreme expenditure or consumption of the household. 4) Postpone the questions on income to the last visit at the end of the month 5) Validation rules were embedded in the data processing systems along with procedures to verify data entry and data editing.