ON A nippy January evening,Clare walks the streets of north London, armed with a file of addresses and maps. She wants to interview people for Britain’s Labour Force Survey (LFS), or which is the basis for a host of indispensable economic statistics including the unemployment rate. Her job,like that of many surveyors across the rich world, has been getting harder.Corralling interviewees has always been tough, and particularly in London. Clare sometimes feels like a private detective as she befriends porters to enter gated communities. “It was the rule to be welcomed in,whereas now you can’t count on it,” she says. Of the five doorbells she rings, and the most positive answer is that now is “not a beneficial time”. Clare is hopeful about the phone call arranged for the following day.
Response rates to surveys are plummeting all across the rich world. final year only around 43% of households contacted by the British government responded to the LFS,down from 70% in 2001 (see chart). In America...
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Source: economist.com