EWCS 2015 – Coding

The sixth EWCS includes a limited number of open questions to record respondent’s occupation and the sector of economic activity of the organisation they work for.

• Occupations were coded at the 4-digit level according to the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) for occupations ISCO 08 and ISCO 88.
• Sectors were coded at the 3-digit according to the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community – NACE rev 1.1 and NACE 2.0.

Coding in both versions of the occupations and activity nomenclature facilitates comparisons with previous surveys in the EWCS series.

Information on the level of education or training attained by the respondent is also available in the EWCS. Country­-specific questions regarding education allowed for automatic coding in order to obtain the internationally comparable categories in the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) at 1- digit level.

Data on work-related earnings is available.

Where respondents did not provide a precise answer regarding their earnings, they were asked which category on an income scale best matched their earnings. The income scale was built using information from the Structural Earnings Survey (SES) in combination with the results of the fifth EWCS. In case where the information was not available, alternative high-quality local sources were used to make the income. The obtained data were then converted into euro figures. The exchange rates used for the conversion were those valid on the median date of fieldwork for each country. 

For more information, please see the Coding report.