Costa Rica

1.Title of the survey:

Multi-purpose Household Survey, Employment Module (Encuesta de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples, Módulo de Empleo).

2.Organization responsible for the survey:

General Directorate of Statistics and Census, Ministry of Economy, Industry and Trade (Dirección General de Estadística y Censos (DGEC), Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Comercio).

3.Coverage of the survey:

(a) Geographical:

The whole country.

(b) Persons covered:

All persons living in private dwellings (for purposes of analysis, the survey covers households living in individual dwellings in Costa Rica).

Excluded are persons living in collective dwellings such as asylums and old people's homes, prisons and hospitals. Also excluded are foreign members of diplomatic missions, nationals resident outside the country for over six months, and foreigners resident in the country for under six months.

Costa Rica has no armed forces.

The economically active population comprises persons aged 12 years and over.

4.Periodicity of the survey:

The survey is annual, and takes place in July of each year (see also under History of the survey).

5.Reference period:

The week preceding the week of the interview.

6.Topics covered:

The Employment Module of the survey provides information on employment, unemployment, underemployment, hours of work, wages and income, employment in the informal sector, duration of unemployment, discouraged and occasional workers, industry, occupation, status in employment and level of education/qualifications.

7.Concepts and definitions:

(a) Employment:

"Considered as employed are persons aged 12 years and over who, in the week preceding the survey, spent at least one hour in the production of goods and services, or who had a job from which they were absent for circumstantial reasons such as sickness, holidays, strike, study grant, bad weather, lack of materials or clients, etc." Published results refer to the "standard employed" which include:

full- and part-time workers who looked for another job during the reference week;
persons who did any work for pay or profit during the reference week, while being subject to compulsory schooling; or retired and receiving a pension; or registered as jobseekers at an employment office, or were receiving unemployment benefit;
full- and part-time students working full- or part-time;
paid apprentices and paid trainees;
participants in employment promotion schemes;
paid and unpaid family workers;
private domestic servants;
members of producers' co-operatives;
persons doing civilian service equivalent to military service.

The following are not classified as employed or as members of the economically active population:

unpaid apprentices and unpaid trainees;
persons engaged in the production of primary products for own consumption, or those engaged in their own housework;
unpaid family workers temporarily absent from their work during the reference week (unless they are looking for work);
seasonal workers awaiting agricultural or other seasonal work;
persons doing unpaid community or voluntary social work.

The July 1987 survey results did not include as employed any persons who took part in the production of primary products exclusively for own consumption; it is hoped to include them in future surveys.

The July 1987 survey results also exclude "marginal employed" from the labour force. This group comprises a part of the population that is in reality employed and carries on economic activities, but is not usually recorded as employed as a result of asking the traditional questions. This may be due to the kind of economic activity they perform, or because they consider that their economic activity cannot be regarded as work. It is intended to include this category of persons in future surveys.

(b) Underemployment:

Visible and invisible underemployment are investigated.

Visible underemployment covers employed persons working fewer than 47 hours weekly, who wish to work longer hours but do not because they cannot find more work either as employees or as self-employed.

Invisible underemployment covers employed persons who work 47 hours or more weekly and earn less than the statutory minimum wage guaranteed by the State, to workers without a specific occupation, by the Minimum Wage Decree; that minimum wage was Colones 7,562 at the time of the July 1987 survey.

(c) Unemployment:

"Considered as unemployed are persons aged 12 years and over who were without work during the reference week, available for work immediately, and who during the five weeks preceding the interview had taken specific steps to find work as employees or self-employed." These persons are classified as "standard unemployed". They include:

persons laid off temporarily or indefinitely without pay, if they looked for work (if they did not look for work they are regarded as inactive);
persons without work, currently available for work, who have made arrangements to begin work in a new job at a date subsequent to the reference week (there is no time limit for starting the new job);
full-time and part-time students looking for full-time or part-time work;
unpaid family workers temporarily absent from their work and looking for work.

The "specific steps" to find work or set up their own business or enterprise include consulting an employment office or labour exchange, inserting or replying to advertisements, personal application to farms, factories, public offices, etc., consulting friends or relatives, or other measures (which must be specified).

Excluded from the unemployed and regarded as inactive are unemployed persons currently available for work who did not look for work during the five weeks preceding the survey, because of illness or accident, study, personal obligations, or because they did not think that they were able to find work, or are awaiting a busier time (the two last-named groups are regarded as discouraged or seasonal unemployed, but are classified as inactive), or for other reasons.

(d) Hours of work:

This refers to the number of hours usually worked weekly in accordance with the timetable for which the person was engaged, both in the main occupation and in other occupations.

(e) Informal sector:

Information based on a specific definition of the informal sector is not tabulated, but the following variables, which are usually used to identify the informal sector, are investigated: level of education, occupational category, location of the establishment (independent, near or in the dwelling), and size of the establishment.

(f) Usual activity:

This topic is not covered by the survey but it may be covered by a special module in a future survey.

8.Classifications used:

Employed persons and unemployed persons with previous work experience are classified by industry, occupation and status in employment. All persons of school age (5 years and over) are classified by level of education. All tabulated data are classified by sex and most variables are classified by age group.

(a) Industry:

The International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC-1968) is used and coding is done to four digits. The results are shown at major division (1-digit) level.

(b) Occupation:

A variant of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-1968) is used and coding is done to three digits. The results are shown at major group (1-digit) level; however, international comparisons can only be made at minor group (2-digit) level.

(c) Status in employment:

The employed are divided into the following seven status groups:

Owner or active partner,
Own-account worker,
State wage earner or salaried employee,
Private enterprise wage earner or salaried employee, (including paid members of producers' co-operatives)
Domestic service,
Unpaid family worker,
Other unpaid worker.

Members of producers' co-operatives are regarded as owners or own-account workers or employees, according to whether the co-operative does or does not have employees. If a member of a co-operative is also an employee he is classified as such.

(d) Level of education/qualifications:

The survey investigates the level of education, and attendance at centres of formal education comprising the education given in schools, colleges, universities and para-university institutions, in the following categories:

Primary, by last completed year,
Secondary technical education or secondary academic education, by last completed year,
Para-university, by last level successfully completed,
University, by last level successfully completed and diploma obtained.

Where the formal education is technical secondary education, para-university education or university education, the career and last diploma obtained are investigated. Also investigated are whether the persons completed any course of education outside the regular curriculum and if so in what speciality.

Nine specialities are combined with five kinds of diplomas obtained to classify the data by level of formal education, and 20 groups are used to classify them by education other than scholastic education.

9.Sample size and design:

(a) The sample frame:

The sample frame is based on information obtained from the 1984 National Censuses - the Eighth Population Census and the Fourth Household Census. It consists of the list of census segments; these contain on average 60 dwellings in urban areas and 40 dwellings in rural areas.

The census segments are delimited geographical areas in which households are associated with their respective dwellings, so giving a measurement very near the probabilities of selection of the households.

The sample frame documentation is supplemented by all the maps and auxiliary documents used in making the 1984 Population and Household Census. The information contained in the frame enables stratification by area (urban and rural), by geographical regions and by socio-economic level.

The frame is updated in various ways:

by means of the Multi-purpose Household Surveys programme:
1. the survey's interviewers and supervisors report on the changes met within the clusters of selected dwellings, and on the degree of change observed in all the segments of the sample; census segments in which there have been great changes are then updated.
2. the new segments entering the sample through rotation are all completely updated.
by identifying zones in which there are new buildings (new urbanisation, extension of urbanisation, etc., that include the construction of one or more blocks).

The frame is stratified in the urban zone by socio-economic level, i.e. the segment is classified in accordance with the estimated level of income of the households in the segment. An indirect method of estimating income is used, based on a multiple lineal regression model. Each segment is classified in a determined socio-economic level (low, medium or high income).

(b) The sample:

It is based on a two-stage probability sample design. The primary units (census segments) are selected with probability proportional to size; the number of individual dwellings in each segment of the sample is then determined from the Register of Buildings and Households; on average, 12 dwellings (secondary units) are selected in each segment; and clusters of three dwellings are selected both in urban and rural areas. The sample is updated from the information given by the last survey.

Sampling fractions differ according to region, as follows:

Planning Region Number of Dwellings Sampling Fraction
Whole country 555,497
Central 355,184 1/100
Central Pacific 34,233 1/30
Chorotega 47,343 1/43
Brunca 50,325 1/46
Atlantic Huetar 43,891 1/40
North Huertar 24,521 1/30

Planning Region	Number of Dwellings	Sampling Fraction
Whole country	555,497
Central	355,184	1/100
Central Pacific	34,233	1/30
Chorotega	47,343	1/43
Brunca	50,325	1/46
Atlantic Huetar	43,891	1/40
North Huertar	24,521	1/30

(c) Rotation:

The rotation design consists in replacing sample dwellings in 50 per cent of the segments constituting the sample; accordingly a selected dwelling remains in the sample and is interviewed in two successive surveys. The selected segments will stay in the sample until the number of dwellings liable to be selected within the segment is exhausted.

10.Field work:

(a) Data collection:

Data are collected at personal interviews with an informant aged over 15 years in each household. The survey is made in five weeks in July and beginning of August each year. The interview lasts on average 35 minutes and the information is collected by interviewers engaged for each survey, but with a team of permanent supervisors and organisers.

In 1987 data collection took place from 14 July to 20 August. The field work was done by 43 interviewers, usually in groups of three, in 14 zones throughout the country, each zone having a supervisor and all staff being co-ordinated by a head supervisor.

(b) Substitution of ultimate sampling units:

In case of absence or non-response ultimate sampling units (dwellings) are not replaced.

11.Quality controls:

Reinterviewing, and checking questionnaires and coding, are done by field supervisors.

When the data are compiled digitation is fully checked; a programme of cleaning-up ranks and inconsistencies between variables is used; a coverage programme is applied; and the totals of the variables are obtained before tabulating the data.

During the July 1987 survey, a statistical evaluation of the data obtained was made, in which data were examined for inconsistencies and compared with other sources of information. Lastly an Evaluation Committee was formed to make an analytical evaluation of results, using historical data series and exogenous information.

12.Weighting the sample:

Different factors of expansion are used for each region and zone (urban and rural), corrected by the rate of non-response of dwellings and persons.

13.Sampling errors:

Standard error of estimates
(Expanded results of the August 1988 survey)
	Total	Men	Women
Employment (estimated)	923,310	674,771	248,539
Standard error	16,624	12,306	6,635
Unemployment (estimated)	54,537	33,127	21,410
Standard error	2,959	2,105	1,646

14.Adjustments:

(a) Population not covered:

No adjustment is made. There are no estimates for excluded groups (see under Coverage of the survey).

(b) Under/overcoverage:

There are difficulties in updating the frame, which are corrected by introducing an adjustment to the factor of expansion based on the growth rates of the estimated total population according to existing population projections. This adjustment is made at geographical region level.

(c) Non-response:

The rate of non-response is very low - approximately 1 per cent. Much higher is the loss of sample units because of other factors such as unoccupied dwellings, and dwellings whose occupants cannot be found. For each ten interviews there is one "lost sample" address due to these causes. A 10 per cent adjustment to the sample was made accordingly.

15.Seasonal adjustment:

No adjustment for seasonal variations has yet been necessary.

16.Non-sampling errors:

The principal sources of bias or error are errors that may arise from the controls in the processing, coding and data entry stages, coverage errors caused by omissions or duplications in the frame, and error in replies.

17.History of the survey:

The first National Household, Employment and Unemployment Survey was conducted in July 1976, and took place in March, July and November of each year until July 1986. During this period practically no change was made in the basic variables relating to employment, unemployment and income. The most important revision was made in 1979, to reduce the number of questions in the questionnaire; this to some extent affected the study of population variables but not employment variables.

As from July 1987 the new Multi-purpose Household Survey was made annually in July. Big changes were made when the scope of the survey was extended to employment from producers of primary products for own consumption, who are however not classified as employed, in order to maintain comparability with previous surveys; but they can be included if so desired once they are fully identified. Also changed was the definition of unemployed, leaving as sole criterion search for employment during the five weeks previous to the survey (before this, persons who were looking for work during the reference week, and discouraged workers, were considered as unemployed).

Greater prominence was given to the study of inactive persons by investigating their availability for work and the reasons for which they did not seek employment. Also, investigation of income was extended; previously this had been done only for employees; it is now done by investigating the income of all persons from all sources except from investment income. A section was introduced on the secondary occupation of employed persons and to cover persons employed in marginal activities which the person does not generally regard as work. Finally the survey was broadened to cover persons of all ages and socio-demographic characteristics such as relationship, sex, age, formal education, informal education, social insurance and marital status.

Specific topics are periodically investigated, upon request from institutions which are users of the survey. (The 1989 survey will include two special modules: Housing and Services, and Household Apparent Food consumption.)

18.Documentation:

For the results of the survey and methodological information, see:

Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Comercio, Dirección General de Estadística y Censos: "Encuesta de Hogares de Propósitos Múltiples, Julio de 1987" (San José, November 1988).

Also available on request are other results in the form of tables.

The publication of the 1988 Survey results is being prepared in 1989.