"Do the Germans Really Work Six Weeks More than the French?" - Measuring Working Time with the Labour Force Survey in France and Germany

Measuring working time is not only an important objective of the EU Labour Force Survey (LFS), but also a highly demanding task in terms of methodology. Against the background of a recent debate on the comparability of working time estimates in France and Germany, this article presents a comparative assessment of the measurement of working time in the Labour Force Survey obtained in both countries. It focuses on the measurement of the hours actually worked, the key working-time concept for short-term economic analysis and the National Accounts. The contribution systematically analyses the differences in the measurement approaches used in France and Germany in order to identify the methodological effects that hinder comparability. It comes to the conclusion that the LFS overstates the difference in hours actually worked in France and Germany and identifies question comprehension, rounding, editing effects, as well as certain aspects of the sampling design, as crucial factors of a reliable measurement in particular of absences from work during the reference week. We recommend continuing the work started in the European Statistical System towards the development of a model questionnaire in order to improve cross-national harmonisation of key variables such as hours actually worked

Measuring the employment status in the Labour Force Survey and the German Census 2011: insights from recent research at Destatis

"Measuring the employment status according to the labour force concept of the International Labour Organization (ILO concept) is far from being straightforward. By defining employment as any economic activity of at least one hour per week, the ILO guidelines apply a strictly economic concept which risks to conflict with everyday life perception. Consequently, small and informal jobs are likely to be overlooked in household surveys. The employment status according to the ILO concept is the conceptual backbone of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and at the same time it is required as a compulsory variable for the European census round. Due to its particular importance, the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) carried out extensive research in order to improve the survey measurement in the LFS and at the same time to develop a suitable approach for the requirements of the household survey carried out under the census 2011. The paper will focus on the impact of the questionnaire design. It is based upon the results of a follow-up survey which was carried out in the Microcensus in 2008, a large-scale field test for the preparation of the census as well as a number of cognitive laboratory tests." (author's abstract)"Die Erfassung des Erwerbsstatus gemäß dem international vereinbarten Labour-Force-Konzept (ILO Konzept) kann in Erhebungen nicht ohne Weiteres umgesetzt werden. Insbesondere das Ein-Stundenkriterium, nach dem jede ökonomische Aktivität ab einer Stunde pro Woche als Erwerbstätigkeit definiert wird, steht nicht immer im Einklang mit einem Alltagsverständnis von Erwerbsarbeit und kann daher bei Befragungen zu Schwierigkeiten führen. Infolgedessen sind kleinere oder informelle Tätigkeiten in Haushaltsbefragungen schwieriger zu erfassen. Der Erwerbsstatus gemäß dem ILO Konzept ist nicht nur das zentrale Merkmal der Arbeitskräfteerhebung, sondern auch ein Pflichtmerkmal der europaweiten Zensusrunde in 2011. Gemessen an der Bedeutung wurden beim Statistischen Bundesamt (Destatis) umfangreiche Untersuchungen durchgeführt, um die Erfassung der Erwerbstätigkeit in der Arbeitskräfteerhebung zu verbessern und um einen geeigneten Ansatz für die Haushaltestichprobe des Zensus 2011 zu entwickeln. Dieser Beitrag konzentriert sich auf den Einfluss der Fragebogengestaltung. Er baut auf den Ergebnissen einer im Jahr 2008 durchgeführten Nachbefragung im Mikrozensus, den Ergebnissen eines Feldtests im Rahmen der Vorbereitung für den Zensus 2011 sowie verschiedenen kognitiven Tests im Pretestlabor auf." (Autorenreferat

Harmonising socio-demographic information in household surveys of official statistics: experiences from the Federal Statistical Office Germany

Um die EU mit vergleichbaren statistischen Daten zu versorgen, setzt das European Statistical System (ESS) verschiedene Strategien internationaler Harmonisierung ein. Diese Strategien reichen von einer vollständigen (Input-) Harmonisierung von Konzepten und Untersuchungsmethoden bis zur Harmonisierung von Output auf der Ebene der aggregierten Daten. Jede Strategie hat ihre spezifischen Stärken und Schwächen und stellt unterschiedliche Anforderungen an die Statistik. Dieser Beitrag konzentriert sich auf die Harmonisierung soziodemographischer Informationen in Haushaltsbefragungen der amtlichen Statistik. Diskutiert werden Ansätze, die in den neuen Community Statistics on Income and Living (EU-SILC) verwendet werden. (ICEÜbers)"In order to provide the European Union with comparable statistical information, the European Statistical System (ESS) has developed different strategies of cross-national harmonisation. These strategies range from a complete (input) harmonisation of concepts and survey methodology to output harmonisation approaches mainly taking place on the level of the aggregated data. Such strategies challenge statistical agencies in different ways and they have specific strengths and weaknesses. The paper focuses on the harmonisation of socio-demographic information in household surveys of official statistics. We discuss the approaches used in the new Community Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)." (author's abstract

Rationale, design and conduct of a comprehensive evaluation of a primary care based intervention to improve the quality of life of osteoarthritis patients. The PraxArt-project: a cluster randomized controlled trial [ISRCTN87252339] ; study protocol

Background: Osteoarthritis (OA) has a high prevalence in primary care. Conservative, guideline orientated approaches aiming at improving pain treatment and increasing physical activity, have been proven to be effective in several contexts outside the primary care setting, as for instance the Arthritis Self management Programs (ASMPs). But it remains unclear if these comprehensive evidence based approaches can improve patients' quality of life if they are provided in a primary care setting. Methods/Design: PraxArt is a cluster randomised controlled trial with GPs as the unit of randomisation. The aim of the study is to evaluate the impact of a comprehensive evidence based medical education of GPs on individual care and patients' quality of life. 75 GPs were randomised either to intervention group I or II or to a control group. Each GP will include 15 patients suffering from osteoarthritis according to the criteria of ACR. In intervention group I GPs will receive medical education and patient education leaflets including a physical exercise program. In intervention group II the same is provided, but in addition a practice nurse will be trained to monitor via monthly telephone calls adherence to GPs prescriptions and advices and ask about increasing pain and possible side effects of medication. In the control group no intervention will be applied at all. Main outcome measurement for patients' QoL is the GERMAN-AIMS2-SF questionnaire. In addition data about patients' satisfaction (using a modified EUROPEP-tool), medication, health care utilization, comorbidity, physical activity and depression (using PHQ-9) will be retrieved. Measurements (pre data collection) will take place in months I-III, starting in June 2005. Post data collection will be performed after 6 months. Discussion: Despite the high prevalence and increasing incidence, comprehensive and evidence based treatment approaches for OA in a primary care setting are neither established nor evaluated in Germany. If the evaluation of the presented approach reveals a clear benefit it is planned to provide this GP-centred interventions on a much larger scale

Probing the tails of the ground state energy distribution for the directed polymer in a random medium of dimension d=1,2,3d=1,2,3 via a Monte-Carlo procedure in the disorder

In order to probe with high precision the tails of the ground-state energy distribution of disordered spin systems, K\"orner, Katzgraber and Hartmann \cite{Ko_Ka_Ha} have recently proposed an importance-sampling Monte-Carlo Markov chain in the disorder. In this paper, we combine their Monte-Carlo procedure in the disorder with exact transfer matrix calculations in each sample to measure the negative tail of ground state energy distribution $P_d(E_0)$ for the directed polymer in a random medium of dimension $d=1,2,3$. In $d=1$, we check the validity of the algorithm by a direct comparison with the exact result, namely the Tracy-Widom distribution. In dimensions $d=2$ and $d=3$, we measure the negative tail up to ten standard deviations, which correspond to probabilities of order $P_d(E_0) \sim 10^{-22}$. Our results are in agreement with Zhang's argument, stating that the negative tail exponent $\eta(d)$ of the asymptotic behavior $\ln P_d (E_0) \sim - | E_0 |^{\eta(d)}$ as $E_0 \to -\infty$ is directly related to the fluctuation exponent $\theta(d)$ (which governs the fluctuations $\Delta E_0(L) \sim L^{\theta(d)}$ of the ground state energy $E_0$ for polymers of length $L$) via the simple formula $\eta(d)=1/(1-\theta(d))$. Along the paper, we comment on the similarities and differences with spin-glasses.Comment: 13 pages, 16 figure

Physical observables in the decay Λb→Λc(→Λ+π)+τ−+νˉτ\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c (\to \Lambda+\pi)+\tau^{-}+\bar \nu_{\tau}

We analyze the tauonic semileptonic baryon decays $\Lambda^0_b \to \Lambda^+_c + \tau^{-} +\bar \nu_{\tau}$ with particular emphasis on the lepton helicity flip contributions which vanish for zero lepton masses. We calculate the total rate, differential decay distributions, the longitudinal and transverse polarization components of the $\Lambda^+_c$ and the $\tau^-$, and the lepton-side forward-backward asymmetries. We use the covariant confined quark model to provide numerical results on these observables.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Talk given by Nurgul Habyl at the 9th joint International HADRON STRUCTURE'15 Conference, GRAND HOTEL BELLEVUE, Horny Smokovec, Slovak Republic, 29 June - 3 July, 201