Nonresponse in the Dutch Time Use Survey: Strategies for Response Enhancement and Bias Reduction

This article describes attempts to enhance response rates in the Dutch Time Use Survey (DTUS). The authors examine what kind of nonresponse bias exists in the DTUS—with special concern for “busyness”—and they analyze whether enhanced response rates result in lower nonresponse bias. Results partly confirm the outcomes of earlier studies. First, time pressure does not seem to stop people from cooperating in the DTUS. Second, people who are participating actively in other domains (work, sports, volunteer work) and people who are more involved (political interest, reading newspapers) tend to cooperate more often in the survey than others. Surprisingly, the authors conclude that an increase in response rate does not necessarily lead to less selectiveness, which is a counterintuitive and worrisome finding. Additional field efforts resulted in more of the same kinds of people cooperating.