1. Panel care in the Austrian EU-SILC
Susanne Göttlinger
Statistics Austria,
Directorate Social Statistics

2. Fieldwork in Austria – Some facts
Fieldwork period:
February to June/July
Min. effective sample size:
4.500 (cross-sectional)
3.250 (longitudinal) HHs
Actual sample size: ~ HHs net/year
4 waves, voluntary participation,
First wave: CAPI; Follow up: CATI (if possible)
Proxy rate ~ 10%
Incentive 15€

3. Notification of the households
Information material for communities as…
… an information letter containing main facts about SILC
…an article template for community newspapers
An information letter for the chambers of labour
Seperate letters for each wave
Letters in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian or Turkish
Letters for the households are supplemented with…
… EU-SILC leaflet
… „SILC newsletter“
… first wave: Booklet „Austria in Figures“
Motivation letters during fieldwork period

4. During the fieldwork period
Measures to keep panel information up to date:
First wave households are asked for…
…the telephone number of persons 16+ years
…the adress of persons 16+ years
…if there are any changes in contact data planned
Follow up households are asked …
…if the whole household moved
…if single persons moved out
…if there are changes in the telehone numbers or addresses noted during the previous wave (or planned
Follow up HHs without and telephone number are asked for the information again.

5. Panel care between waves
How do we stay in touch with the households?
Website and SILC-hotline:
SILC address:
HHs can contact us and provide information all over the year
Christmas cards are sent via
„Christmas letter“ is sent by mail to all of the follow up HHs

6. Christmas card and Chistmas letter
Respondents are thanked for their participation and informed about the survey in the following year
Households are asked if there were changes or if there are changes planned…
… in the composition of the household
… of the address
… of telephone numbers
They can also order…
… which mode they prefer for the next wave
… the booklet „Austria in Figures“
Do they plan to move  auch mit reinnehmen

7. E-mail for Christmas – Experiences
Some figures:
~ 1/3 of follow up households in Austria provided an address
Plausibility check was made before sending out the s  ~ 15 addresses were corrected
< 10% of those with address were undeliverable
Some of the undeliverable cases could be corrected because there were obvious typing errors

8. E-mail for Christmas – Reactions
Reactions of respondents:
Consistently positiv reactions  no complaints at all about Statistics Austria sending s
Expected number of refusals  not more, not less
Explicitly positiv reactions, for example…
…Christmas greetings back to us
…people stating, that they are looking forward to the next SILC wave
Increasing number of responses (~ 1/3 more responses)

9. Which information do we get?
Changes of the address of the whole household or single members
Changes of contact information
Changes of the composition of the household
 Split-off households
Preferences of the interview mode
Deaths and births
Refusals
Returned letters because of deaths, adress changes…
check with the population register

10. How is the gathered information used?
The „Hotline“-database
Tool to gather usefull information for first wave and follow up households
Provided information is categorised
Information can be filtered, sorted and updated before the next fieldwork period

11. Which information do the HHs provide?
Distribution of contacts: ~38% by
~22% by post
~40% by call
Types of changes:
Moving of the whole household: ~12%
Change of the telephone number: ~15%
Prefered mode: ~22%
Further changes noted:
Moving of parts of the houshold
New household members
Death of a whole household as well as single members
Typing errors, mistakes in birth dates…

12. Further Results: Example SILC 2017
2 – 3% split off households overall per year (~50% of these are successfully interviewed)
0.2% deaths of respondents
1.4% moved into an institutional home or out of country
11.5% of the households were questioned in a foreign language

13. Thank you for your attention!
Susanne Göttlinger
Statistics Austria,
Directorate Social Statistics