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Pratt, Joanne H. |
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Counting the New Mobile Workforce Report BTS97-A-01, U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, April 1997. Also: http://www.bts.gov/statpol/wrkforce.pdf Cohort(s): Mature Women, NLSY79, Young Women Publisher: Bureau of Transportation Statistics, U.S. Department of Transportation Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Labor Market Demographics; Labor Market Surveys; Longitudinal Data Sets; Longitudinal Surveys; Mobility, Labor Market; Self-Employed Workers; Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); Work Hours/Schedule Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. The existing federal surveys that provide policy makers with the data needed to inform their decision-making were designed to monitor the employment and travel patterns of the Industrial Age. They were not designed to monitor the more fluid patterns of work times and locations that are characteristic of the information age. The thrust of the study is to examine existing federal surveys in order to identify those to which work-at-home questions have been, or can be added in order to generate more reliable information about an increasingly mobile workforce. By this strategy, at little or no cost, new or revised questions can be added while maintaining the continuity of past years' data sets. In adapting these surveys, the problem is to define "work," "home," and similar words that are commonly used in our language but which have acquired a plethora of associated meanings. The difficulty has not been resolved by the many new terms coined to describe non-traditional ways to work. The problem with words such as "telecommuting," "hoteling," "homebased business," and "mobile workers," is that they are not defined by objective criteria such as the hours worked and locations. To bypass this situation, we recommend phrasing questions in terms of measurable variables such as the place of work and the time in days and hours spent at each location. That approach leaves researchers the option of applying their own definitions that fit the context of their analyses. About 20 questionnaires were examined to identify those to which work-at-home questions were relevant. During the period of the study, questions were added to the American Housing Survey, Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey, and to the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We propose new questions or rephrasing for the Current Population Survey, the 2000 Census, the Health and Retirement Survey, National Educational Longitudinal Study, National Household Education Survey, and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Further, we recommend continuing the topic of work at home in those surveys to which questions had previously been added such as the Characteristics of Business Owners, the National Longitudinal Surveys, and the National Survey of Families and Households. In addition, a set of core questions with four levels of priority is recommended for consideration in designing future surveys. |
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Bibliography Citation
Pratt, Joanne H. "Counting the New Mobile Workforce." Report BTS97-A-01, U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, April 1997. |