Canadian Household Panel Survey (CHPS)

Detailed information for 2008 (Living in Canada Survey - Pilot)

The purpose of this survey is to collect information about how jobs, education, health, and families affect people's lives.

Data release - This is a pilot survey. No public use microdata file will be produced by Statistics Canada and data will not be made available through the Data Liberation Initiative (DLI).

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy
• Documentation

Description

This survey collects information about how jobs, education, health, and families affect people's lives.

The information collected will serve as the basis for a better understanding of Canadian society in the 21st century. A few of the questions that will be answered by this survey include:

How do people prepare for job loss or retirement?

What happens to children when their families break up?

Who takes care of children or elderly parents? How stressful is this?

Is health or wealth more important in people's lives?

How do different groups like immigrants or lone parents get along in society?

This will be used by different levels of government in order to help them make better policies and programs. Moreover, surveys such as this one have already proven to be invaluable in other countries. This survey will allow us to see how Canada measures up against other countries.

For the purposes of field work, the pilot survey was called the Living in Canada Survey - Pilot. The objectives of the pilot survey were to (1) test a questionnaire and measure the quality of data collected; (2) evaluate several design features and; (3) test reactions to the survey from respondents and field workers.

Subjects

• Education, training and learning
• Families, households and housing
• Household, family and personal income
• Income, pensions, spending and wealth
• Labour
• Labour mobility, turnover and work absences
• Occupations

Data sources and methodology

Target population

This pilot version of the survey is carried out in four provinces only (New-Brunswick, Ontario, Québec and Saskatchewan).

Those living on Indian reserves and crown lands and official representatives of foreign countries living in Canada and their families were also excluded from the survey. Members of religious and other communal colonies, members of the Canadian Forces living in military camps and people living in residences for senior citizens were excluded, as were people living full time in institutions, for example, inmates of penal institutions and chronic care patients living in hospitals and nursing homes.

Instrument design

The CHPS-Pilot project was developed under a tripartite governance system with each of Statistics Canada, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) and the academic community represented. A steering committee made up of two Director Generals from Statistics Canada, a Director General from HRSDC and two academics directed the project. The survey was managed at Statistics Canada in the Income Statistics Division.

Content development took place from February 2007 through March 2008. Content development was driven by four academic expert groups, each responsible for one of the four major subject matter domains identified above. These four expert groups, comprising about 20 Canadian academics, advised on content needs and priorities, and discussed possible research uses for the new survey. Each of the four academic expert groups prepared a report indicating what data should be collected for each domain, including some indication on which items could be used as rotating content as opposed to content that would appear in each year. These reports were developed over several months, during which time there were a number of meetings held to exchange preliminary ideas. A draft of the pilot survey was then produced.

Policy research experts from federal departments were consulted to comment on the draft survey. Researchers from HRSDC, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, and the Bank of Canada were consulted on data needs, resulting in numerous changes to the draft survey. Qualitative testing of the questionnaire in the form of one-on-one interview testing was undertaken from January through March 2008.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a longitudinal design.

The sample comprised 1,200 dwellings selected from the Labour Force Survey
(LFS) Rotate-out frame and 1,400 dwellings selected from the LFS Area-frame. Roughly equal sized samples were drawn from each of four provinces - Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. To minimise collection costs, the pilot-survey had a small sample size and used a highly clustered design. As a result, the pilot survey was not expected to yield estimates of the population.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2008-10-15 to 2008-12-31

Responding to this survey is voluntary.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

The collection method was non-proxy computer assisted personal interviews (CAPI), although the option was given to interviewers to conduct the interview over the telephone using the CAPI application if a face to face meeting could not be scheduled.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .

Error detection

This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.

Imputation

This methodology does not apply.

Estimation

This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

No public use microdata file will be produced by Statistics Canada and data will not be made available through the Data Liberation Initiative (DLI).

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology does not apply to this survey.

Data accuracy

The pilot survey achieved a response rate of 76%, with a mean household interview time of 68 minutes. Several innovative design features were tested, and found to be viable. Response to the survey, whether from respondents or interviewers, was generally positive.

The CHPS-Pilot demonstrated the feasibility of a general household panel survey in Canada, established a probable wave 1 response rate, a target interview length, and yielded useful information on frame use. These results and other expertise gained from the CHPS-Pilot will inform future work on longitudinal household survey development at Statistics Canada.

Documentation

• Results from the Canadian Household Panel Survey Pilot
  The objectives of the pilot survey were to: (1) test a questionnaire and measure the quality of data collected; (2) evaluate several design features and; (3) test reactions to the survey from respondents and field workers. This paper (also available through the Publications sidebar above) highlights results from the CHPS-Pilot.
  • Format: Results from the Canadian Household Panel Survey Pilot - HTML[HTML]