Longitudinal characteristics of LS members with internet v paper form completion in 2011

Oliver Duke-Williams, Nicola Shelton and Aly Sizer, UCL, Ian Shuttleworth, Queen’s University Belfast and Paul Norman, University of Leeds

(Project no. 0301744, previously 30174)

Exploration of who filled in 2011 census via internet as opposed to paper, and what longitudinal characteristics might differentiate them.

The 2021 Census (should it occur) will have an emphasis on internet form completion. Existing LS data may allow us to understand more about the differences in those who completed the census by different modes than can be discovered by cross-sectional observations alone. A particular interest is in whether internet form availability might increase participation amongst some hard-to-reach populations.

One aspect that I am particularly interested in is whether people who had actively or inadvertently failed to complete census in 2001 or earlier are seen to ‘re-appear’ in Internet completions. This might point to new strengths in any future internet-centric census.

I have identified an extract as including non-members as well as members, in order to comment on any household level effects.

Given that Internet completion was small subset of the population (c. 16%?), I expect all analysis will have to be at a national level rather than using regional breakdowns.

This work is to be presented as part of work on Internet censuses with cross-sectional analyses by Ian Shuttleworth, at the ESRC Festival of Social Science in November 2014.

Link