Study title

Finnish Working Life Barometer: Local Government Employees 2008

Dataset ID Number

FSD2753

Persistent identifiers

https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD2753
https://doi.org/10.60686/t-fsd2753

Data Type

Quantitative

Authors

• Statistics Finland. Interview and Survey Services
• Ministry of Employment and the Economy

Other Identification/Acknowledgements

• Centre for Occupational Safety

Abstract

The annual survey studied employee opinion on the quality of working life in Finnish municipalities. Main themes were psychosocial working environment, job characteristics, pay systems, satisfaction with the job, employment security, training and development, capacity to work, and bullying and discrimination at work.

First, the respondents were asked how many years they had worked for the employer they were working for at the time, type of contract, number of persons at the workplace, and what kind of changes there had been in staff numbers, working hours, contracts, and tasks during the past 12 months, and whether people had been transferred to other units. Further questions covered team work, whether there had been conflicts at the workplace, between what groups and whether the conflicts had decreased or increased over the past 12 months. Incidents of bullying and violence were charted.

Next set of questions covered the respondent's autonomy at work and other job characteristics, overtime and its compensation, flexible working time arrangements, and R's membership in a trade union or professional association. Changes over the past year in workload, physical or mental stress, in access to training etc were explored as well as pay and bonus systems, and satisfaction with pay. Psychosocial working environment was charted with a number of questions, for instance, whether employees were treated equally, was there support for trying new things and so on. One topic pertained to whether the respondents had presented any ideas to improve working conditions, products, services or working methods at the workplace and whether there had been other development initiatives. The respondents' participation in job-related training and development was investigated.

One theme pertained to job satisfaction. The respondents were asked to what extent they agreed with a number of statements relating to staff sufficiency, organisation of work, access to information, physical or mental stress etc. They were asked how likely it was that they would be dismissed or laid off, or their tasks or working hours would be changed over the next year. Opinions on the employer's financial situation, employment situation in Finland and on changes in working life were studied. A number of questions investigated how the employees' capacity to work and occupational safety had been taken into account at the workplace, the respondents' sickness absences, and estimate of own mental and physical capacity to work. Discrimination at work based on ethnic group, age, gender and type of contract was explored.

Background variables included the respondent's age, gender, major region (NUTS2), type of municipality, education, occupational status and group, industry of employment, employer type, status in employment, economic activity, weekly working hours, additional jobs, whether R worked for a municipality or a federation of municipalities and in which sector. Information on age, gender, major region, type of municipality and education level were obtained from registers. Other background variables were obtained from the Labour Force Survey 2008 telephone interviews which were often conducted together with the Finnish Working Life Barometer interview.

Keywords

arrangement of working time; autonomy at work; discrimination; employees; employment contracts; job characteristics; job satisfaction; job security; local government officers; occupational training; personnel management; personnel policy; wages; working conditions

Topic Classification

• Social sciences (Fields of Science Classification)
• Social behaviour and attitudes (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Equality, inequality and social exclusion (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Employment (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Labour relations/conflict (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Working conditions (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Occupational health (CESSDA Topic Classification)

Series

Finnish Working Life Barometers: Local Government Employees

Distributor

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Access

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

Data Collector

• Statistics Finland

Data Producers

• Centre for Occupational Safety. Local Government Sector Group

Time Period Covered

2008

Collection Dates

2008-09-01 – 2008-10-09

Nation

Finland

Geographical Coverage

Finland

Analysis/Observation Unit Type

Individual

Universe

Finnish-speaking local government employees, aged 18 - 64, who worked at least 10 hours a week

Time Method

Longitudinal: Trend/Repeated cross-section

Data Sources

Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): Labour force survey 2008 [e-publication]. ISSN=1798-7857. Helsinki: Statistics Finland. Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/tyti/tie_en.html [referred: 18 July 2012].

Ministry of Employment and the Economy & Statistics Finland: Finnish Working Life Barometer 2008.

Sampling Procedure

Probability: Simple random

Simple random sample from the population register. For its Labour Force Survey 2008, Statistics Finland drew a random sample of people aged between 15 - 74 and living in Finland. From the Labour Force Survey sample, Finnish-speaking employees aged 18 - 64 who had responded being employed for at least 10 hours a week were selected for the Working Life Barometer. This dataset contains the interview data of local government employees only (N=683). The target population was deliberately oversampled.

Collection Mode

Telephone interview: Computer-assisted (CATI)

Research Instrument

Structured questionnaire

Data File Language

Downloaded data package may contain different language versions of the same files.

The data files of this dataset are available in the following languages: Finnish.

FSD translates quantitative data into English on request, free of charge. More information on ordering data translation.

Data Version

2.0

Related Datasets

FSD2647 Finnish Working Life Barometer 2008

Weighting

There are no weight variables in the data.

Citation Requirement

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical Citation

Statistics Finland & Ministry of Employment and the Economy: Finnish Working Life Barometer: Local Government Employees 2008 [dataset]. Version 2.0 (2018-07-20). Finnish Social Science Data Archive [distributor]. https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD2753

Deposit Requirement

Notify FSD of all publications where you have used the data by sending the citation information to user-services.fsd@tuni.fi.

Special Terms and Conditions for Access

Users of the data shall send a copy of all research publications based on or using the data to the following two mail addresses: Tiina-Mari Monni, Työturvallisuuskeskus, Lönnrotinkatu 4 B, 00120 Helsinki, Finland; and Antti Siikanen, Haastattelu- ja tutkimuspalvelut, 00022 Tilastokeskus, Finland.

Disclaimer

The original data creators and the archive bear no responsibility for any results or interpretations arising from the reuse of the data.

Related Publications

Ylöstalo, Pekka & Jukka, Pirkko (2009). Työolobarometri. Lokakuu 2008. Helsinki: Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriö. Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriön julkaisuja; Työ ja yrittäjyys 33/2009.

Kunta-alan työolobarometri 2008. Työ- ja elinkeinoministeriön tyolobarometrin 2008 kuntatyöpaikkojen osatarkastelu (2009) [verkkodokumentti]. Helsinki: Työturvallisuuskeskus, kuntaryhmä. Saatavilla: http://www.ttk.fi/files/700/Kuntabaro2008.pdf [Viitattu 4.7.2012] .