Morocco (2):

1.Title of the survey:

National Survey of the urban economically active population (Enquête nationale sur la population active urbaine - ENPAU).

2.Organization responsible for the survey:

Directorate of Statistics, Ministry of Planning (Direction de la statistique, ministère du Plan).

3.Coverage of the survey:

(a) Geographical:

(b) Persons covered:

Excluded from the coverage of the survey are persons resident in collective households (military barracks, philanthropic institutions, places of detention, etc.) and non-residents. However, students in halls of residence and boarding schools are considered as members of the households surveyed.

4.Periodicity of the survey:

The survey is annual and takes place throughout the year.

5.Reference period:

The day before the interview, or the week or month preceding the interview, according to the category of questions.

6.Topics covered:

The survey provides information on employment, unemployment, underemployment, hours of work, wages, duration of unemployment, regularity of employment (permanent, occasional or seasonal workers), industry, occupation, status in employment and level of education.

7.Concepts and definitions:

(a) Employment:

1. "The employed in the narrow sense of the term, i.e. all persons of working age (7 years and over) who spontaneously stated that they had a job at the time of the survey. An employed person may be an employer, employee, self-employed worker, family worker, apprentice, partner or member of a co-operative.

   Also considered as employed are persons who, during the reference period, are not working because of illness, leave, labour-management disputes or temporary stoppage for reasons beyond their control, provided they are certain to return to work (with which they have a formal job attachment, such as wage or contract) within a period not exceeding two months.

2. The marginal employed population, i.e. all persons of working age (7 years and over) who consider themselves as inactive but state, at an advanced stage of the interview, that they had an economic activity during the reference period (the 30 days preceding the date of the survey)."

The employed population also includes:

1. full- and part-time workers seeking other work;
2. persons who did any work for pay or profit during the reference period (the day or the month preceding the interview), while being retired and receiving a pension;
3. paid or unpaid apprentices and trainees;
4. participants in employment promotion schemes;
5. paid or unpaid family workers, even when temporarily absent from their work;
6. private domestic servants;
7. members of producers' co-operatives;
8. volunteer and career members of the armed forces (excluding conscripts, who are not covered by the survey) and persons doing civilian service, who are graduates from higher educational establishments and receive a remuneration.

Excluded from the employed are:

1. persons doing unpaid community or social work;
2. pupils or students whose main activity is attendance at an educational institution;
3. persons whose only activity is work around the house (case of housewives).

(b) Underemployment:

1. work stoppage for leave or public holidays;
2. work stoppage due to illness;
3. bad health preventing work for longer hours;
4. incapacity for work for longer hours because of age;
5. study or training;
6. unwilling to work longer than 32 hours."

(c) Unemployment:

1. "The unemployed population in the narrow sense of the term, i.e. all persons aged 15 years and over who are not working at the time of the survey and spontaneously state that they are looking for a job. Persons surveyed who are not looking for work because they have been promised employment or are awaiting a reply from an employer or the takeoff of their own business, are also considered as unemployed;
2. The marginal unemployed population, i.e. all persons surveyed aged 15 years and over who spontaneously consider themselves as inactive but state at an advanced stage of the survey that they are looking for work."

Persons laid off temporarily or for a period of indefinite duration without pay, and seasonal workers awaiting seasonal (agricultural or other) work are considered as unemployed.

No specific reference period is used for job search. "Actively looking for work" means registering at an employment agency; seeking assistance from friends, relatives and acquaintances, etc.; direct contact with possible employers; MOKAF (non-institutional premises where jobseekers pay daily visits in order to be recruited by employers); studying or inserting advertisements in the newspapers; written applications and competitive examinations, etc.

Full-time or part-time students looking for full-time or part-time work are excluded from the unemployed and considered as inactive.

(d) Hours of work:

(e) Informal sector:

(f) Usual activity:

8.Classifications used:

The whole of the economically active population is classified by industry, occupation and status in employment. All persons covered by the survey are classified according to their level of education, and persons aged 10 years and over are classified according to the highest diploma obtained.

(a) Industry:

The 27-group classification is convertible to the International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC-1968) at the 3-digit level.

(b) Occupation:

The classification used has eight groups and is convertible to the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-1968) to the level of major groups (1-digit coding).

(c) Status in employment:

1. Self-employed,
2. Employer,
3. Employee,
4. Home worker,
5. Apprentice,
6. Unpaid family worker;
7. Partner in or member of a co-operative.

This classification is convertible to the International Classification of Status in Employment (ICSE).

(d) Level of education/qualifications:

1. No diploma,
2. Certificate of primary education (CEP) and diploma of similar standard,
3. Certificate of secondary education (CES) and equivalent diplomas,
4. Baccalauréat and all equivalent diplomas,
5. Diplomas of higher education issued by faculties,
6. Diplomas of higher education issued by the 'grandes écoles' (including the Faculty of Medicine),
7. Middle management diplomas (diplomas and certificates for technicians and technical assistants),
8. Diplomas and certificates of capacity or vocational skill.

9.Sample size and design:

(a) The sample frame:

(b) The sample:

The final sampling fraction is approximately 2 per cent and the sample represents approximately 40,000 households (200,000 persons). In 1986, nearly 36,278 households were so observed.

(c) Rotation:

10.Field work:

(a) Data collection:

The method used for the survey is the direct method. When interviewing a household the interviewer fills in a questionnaire with the help of instructions prepared for that purpose, and interviews on average six households daily. The questionnaire is pre-codified, and the interviewers directly code the replies given by the persons surveyed, except those answers requiring the use of a nomenclature (occupation, economic activity and highest diploma obtained). The survey takes the whole year. The files on the final units surveyed are sent every month to the Compilation Centre at the Directorate of Statistics.

(b) Substitution of ultimate sampling units:

11.Quality controls:

Completed questionnaires are checked on the spot by the supervisors when information is collected. In case of error or omission, the interviewer who filled in the questionnaire sees the household again. Questionnaires are then checked in detail by the regional offices, and errors and omissions found are corrected by re-interview. When the Compilation Centre is sent the questionnaires it checks the quality of the information collected and codes the questions on occupation, economic activity and diplomas.

After coding, the questionnaires are sent to the Computer Division for data capture and computer processing, and undergo tests for accuracy and coherence. They are analysed by a team of computer experts and statisticians from the Household Surveys Division. The principle of automatic correction (by programme) has been adopted for auditing the files, in order to reduce the time required for analysis of the survey data.

12.Weighting the sample:

Weighting and adjustment of the survey results are in two stages. The first consists in adjusting the basic extrapolation coefficients in order to reduce the distorsions that may be caused by non-response. The adjustment is by region and at the level of each of the strata of the sample design (kind of habitat). Its principle consists in multiplying the basic extrapolation coefficients by (1 + Xn), where Xn is the ratio of non-respondent households to the total number of households surveyed (including non-respondent households).

The second stage consists in rendering the population estimates shown by the survey consistent with those of the population projections. The auxiliary information used in correcting the weighting coefficients is the breakdown of the population by sex and by age. The data shown by the survey are compared with the population projections. The weights of all the persons surveyed within a class are corrected by the same multiplying factor (the factor varying from class to class) so that the structures by sex and by age shown by the survey are consistent with those of the population projections.

13.Sampling errors:

Sampling errors are calculated for internal use only, and are not published.

14.Adjustments:

(a) Population not covered:

(b) Under/overcoverage:

(c) Non-response:

Adjustment for non-response is made when results are extrapolated. The crux of the correction procedure is to increase the weights of respondent households so that they represent the non-respondent households.

15.Seasonal adjustment:

No adjustment is made for seasonal variations.

16.Non-sampling errors:

Non-sampling errors are negligible, due to the controls made at various stages of the survey.

17.History of the survey:

The first series of annual surveys of urban employment took place from 1976 to 1982. Each annual survey covered approximately 16,000 households, or nearly 1 per cent of the urban population. The survey took place in April and May every year.

The second series began in 1984, following the General Population and Housing Census of 1982 and the introduction in 1983 by the Directorate of Statistics of the Ministry of Planning of a national system of household surveys.

The methodology of the survey was completely revised in 1984. Amendments affected nearly all features of the survey, including the sample design, concepts and methods of observation of the economically active population, the time taken to conduct the survey, and its organisation in the field.

18.Documentation:

Following each annual survey the Directorate of Statistics publishes the reports on the preliminary results, synthetic results and detailed results. For the latest available data and methodological information, see especially:

Ministère du Plan, Direction de la statistique: "Enquêtes statistiques, Population active urbaine 1986, Vol. I: Rapport de Synthèse" (Rabat, 1988).

Other unpublished results in the form of tables and magnetic tapes are also available, on application to the Directorate of Statistics.