EWCS 2015 language versions
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European Working Conditions Surveys (EWCS)
Since its launch in 1990, the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) has provided an overview of working conditions in Europe.
European Working Conditions Survey 2015
Eurofound’s European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) paints a wide-ranging picture of Europe at work across countries, occupations, sectors and age groups. Its findings highlight actions for policy actors to help them address the challenges facing Europe today. In 2015, Eurofound carried out its sixth survey in the series, offering a rich portrait of workplace trends in Europe over the past 25 years. Its findings provide detailed information on a broad range of issues, including exposure to physical and psychosocial risks, work organisation, work–life balance, and health and well-being.
The survey was carried out from February to December 2015.
Nearly 44,000 workers were interviewed in 35 countries including the EU28, Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey.
Face-to-face interviews were carried out in the respondents’ homes.
49 language versions of the questionnaire were developed.
To display this data, use the filters below to select a question. Refine the results by selecting a country (or group of countries), apply additional filters (which vary throughout the surveys) or change the visualisation by selecting a preferred chart type.
Dashboard
Dashboard
Overall, the survey finds, structural inequalities and differences in terms of gender, employment status and occupation are still significant. In the last 10 years, there has been limited progress in the following job quality indices.
Physical environment: The exposure of men and women to physical risks differs markedly, pointing to sectoral and occupational segregation in the workplace. Over the last decade, exposure to noise, for example, has decreased in the EU28 significantly while exposure to chemical and infectious products has increased.
Work intensity: One-third of workers in the EU work to tight deadlines and at high speed. Workers in the health sector are exposed to the greatest levels of work intensity.
Working time quality: Overall, the working time quality index has improved in the EU28 since 2005. 43% of workers have very regular working schedules. One worker in five (22%) works in their free time to meet work demands at least several times a month.
Social environment: The social climate in work is generally positive, 89% of workers stating they enjoy good cooperation with their colleagues. Around 16% of workers – more women than men – report exposure to adverse social behaviour.
Skills and discretion: There has been a narrowing of the skills gender gap, with women catching up and younger age groups closing the gap with older groups. 33% of workers in elementary occupations are directly involved in decisions that affect their work; for managers the figure is almost 80%.
Prospects: Part-time workers score less than full-time workers (59 points compared to 66). Job insecurity remains at the same level as in 2010: 16% of workers feel they could lose their job in the next six months.
Earnings: Most workers are concentrated at the lower end of the income distribution, with very few at the upper end. The income of men is substantially higher than that of women, partly due to differences in working hours.
This section provides further information targeted in particular at researchers.
The following publications were produced in relation to the EWCS 2015.
Methodology
In its European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS), Eurofound aims to collect comparable and reliable data on working conditions across Europe. The methodology is incrementally improved. based on lessons learned as well as to reflect the state-of-the-art in survey methodology.
Contractor
Ipsos NV, Belgium
Coverage
28 EU Member States, Norway, Switzerland, Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey.
Fieldwork period
February–September 2015 in the EU28, Norway, and Switzerland; September–December 2015 in Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey
Target population
All residents of the countries mentioned above aged 15 or older (16 or older in Bulgaria, Norway, Spain, and the UK) and in employment at the time of the survey. People were considered to be in employment if they had worked for pay or profit for at least an hour in the week preceding the interview (ILO definition).
Sample
Multi-stage, stratified, random samples of the working population in each country. Depending on the availability of high-quality registers, sampling was carried out using individual-level, household-level, and address-level registers, or through enumeration using a random-walk approach. Country-level samples were stratified by region and degree of urbanization. In each stratum, primary sampling units (PSUs) were randomly selected proportional to size. Subsequently, a random sample of households was drawn in each PSU. Finally, unless individual-level registers were used, in each household the selected respondent was the person in work who would have their birthday next.
Sample size
In most countries, the target sample size was 1,000. To reflect the larger workforce in larger countries, the target was increased to 1,200 in Poland, 1,300 in Spain, 1,400 in Italy, 1,500 in France, 1,600 in the UK, and 2,000 in Germany and Turkey. Eurofound also offered countries the opportunity to top-up their sample. This offer was taken up by Belgium, Slovenia, and Spain, which led to sample sizes of 2,500, 1,600, and 3,300, respectively, in these countries. The total sample size for the sixth EWCS in all 35 countries is 43,850 interviews.
Type of interview
Face to face, at the respondent’s home; average duration of 45 minutes
Quality assurance
Quality assurance focused on consistency in survey implementation and methodology across each wave of the EWCS as well as comparability across countries. To ensure high quality, Eurofound applied state-of-the-art practices in cross-cultural survey methodology. Each stage of the survey was carefully planned, closely monitored and documented, and specific controls were put in place building on recommendations outlined in the Quality control report. Survey quality was also assessed by an independent third party.
The EWCS 2015 questionnaire includes questions from previous surveys to enable analysis over time. It also contains new questions that address emerging challenges and policy issues of interest. In developing the questionnaire – and in its analysis – gender mainstreaming has been a guiding principle.
The EWCS aims to capture workers' concrete experience. It includes the following topics:
physical and psychosocial risk factors
working time: duration, organisation, predictability and flexibility; work–life balance
place of work
speed of work, pace determinants
employee participation, human resource policies and work organisation (such as task rotation); employee representation
skills use, cognitive dimensions of work, decision-making authority, and learning in work
employment conditions: job security and insecurity
social relations at work: support, trust, cooperation, discrimination, violence
gender issues: segregation, household composition, unpaid’ work, extent of women in supervisory positions
well-being and health, earnings and financial security.
Questionnaire development
The EWCS 2015 questionnaire includes questions from previous surveys to enable analysis over time as well as new questions addressing emerging challenges and policy issues of interest.
New topics covered include company size, country of birth, part-time or full-time status of partner, on-call work, the heterogeneity of self-employment, occurrence of chronic diseases, sleeping problems, recent changes in the job, organisational justice, employee representation and engagement, and fairness of pay.
The development of the questionnaire started approximately two years before fieldwork. It has built on the following foundations:
feedback from users and lessons from previous editions of the EWCS series;
extensive consultation with Eurofound’s tripartite stakeholders, other EU bodies (European Commission, Eurostat, EU-OSHA, EIGE), international experts (OECD, ILO), and experts in working conditions surveys and other research and policy areas relevant to the survey;
the analysis of European policy documents as well as a specific literature review (for example, on self-employment, and engagement at the workplace);
cognitive testing to assess how well the questions work: did respondents’ understand the terms used? Had they had the same meaning for different groups? Were they easy to answer?
an assessment of the translatability to identify cultural issues and potential aspects that could be hard to translate.
Eurofound has produced a historical overview, which maps the development of the questionnaire over time. It contains all the questions that have ever been asked in all five surveys, organised by topic and chronologically.
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To ensure the success of a survey like the EWCS, the language versions of the questionnaire to be used in each country must be of high quality. Since consistency and accuracy are key elements of a successful comparative survey, Eurofound implements intensive, rigorous translation procedures to achieve the best translations possible. Part of the approach taken in translation was to look for comparability or equivalence: a straightforward word-for-word translation might not have resulted in comparable data.
The translation process took place in five main phases:
assessment of the translatability of the source questionnaire;
training sessions for translators and adjudicators;
translation of the source questionnaire using the translation, review, adjudication, pre-testing and documentation (TRAPD)(opens in new tab)This link opens in a new tab approach;
translation of all other fieldwork materials;
translation pre-test.
The EWCS 2015 covers 35 European countries – EU28, Norway, Switzerland, Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. In total, 49 language versions of the questionnaire have been developed. Where the same language is spoken in more than one country, harmonisation or adaptation was applied depending on circumstances.
The translation report describes in detail the steps leading to the translation and finalisation of all language versions.
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Download the questionnaire in the language of each country below.
| Country | Language(s) | Country | Language(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Albania | Albanian | Lithuania | Lithuanian, Russian |
| Austria | German | Luxembourg | Luxemburgish, French, German |
| Belgium | Dutch, French | Malta | Maltese, English |
| Bulgaria | Bulgarian | Montenegro | Montenegrin, Serbian |
| Croatia | Croatian | Netherlands | Dutch |
| Cyprus | Greek | Norway | Norwegian |
| Czech Republic | Czech | Poland | Polish |
| Denmark | Danish | Portugal | Portuguese |
| Estonia | Estonian, Russian | Romania | Romanian |
| Finland | Finnish, Swedish | Serbia | Serbian, Hungarian |
| France | French | Slovakia | Slovakian |
| FYROM | Macedonian, Albanian | Slovenia | Slovenian |
| Germany | German | Spain | Basque, Catalan, Spanish |
| Greece | Greek | Sweden | Swedish |
| Hungary | Hungarian | Switzerland | German, French, Italian |
| Ireland | English | Turkey | Turkish |
| Italy | Italian | UK | English |
| Latvia | Latvian, Russian |
Eurofound experts
You can contact the following experts for questions on the survey.
Agnès Parent-Thirion
Senior research managerWorking life research
Agnès Parent-Thirion is a senior research manager in the Working Life unit at Eurofound, tasked with the planning, development and implementation of working conditions research projects, in particular the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) and its analyses. She is responsible for the EWCS 2021 extraordinary edition and for the preparation of the questionnaire for the EWCS 2024. Her research interests include working conditions, job quality, the monitoring of working conditions, work organisation, gender, the future of work and time. She has been working in the area of European comparative surveys for more than a decade, in all aspects including design, questionnaire development, fieldwork, quality control and analysis. She is a graduate in economics and management from Paris IX Dauphine and Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne universities and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Statistics from Trinity College Dublin. She has recently completed online courses on artificial intelligence: inquiry-driven leadership with MIT Sloan Executive Education and ‘Les grand enjeux de la transition: re-ouvrir l'horizon, comprendre pour agir’ with the Campus de la Transition. Before joining Eurofound, she worked for a number of years in the European Commission.
Sophia MacGoris
Surveys officerWorking life research
Sophia MacGoris is surveys officer based in the Working Life unit at Eurofound. She works on all three of Eurofound's surveys. Having been involved in cross-national surveys for many years, she uses her experience and her transversal role to ensure a continuity of learning and quality assurance to the highest level during the entire survey process. Prior to joining Eurofound in 1996, she worked for several years in the European Commission in Brussels in the area of science, research and development. She holds a BSc (Hons) in Social Science specialising in Social Policy.
