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Employment Status
Description:
As part of the MEPS questionnaire, the employment section covers questions about each person's employment or self-employment status. For jobs identified, this section asks questions to obtain contact information for each employer. For several types of jobs, questions are asked about type of business or industry, firm size, how long the person has worked at each job, whether health insurance was offered, hours worked, job titles or main duties.
For persons who are currently employed, questions ask about periods of unpaid leave at their job. For those not currently working, questions ask about previous jobs and the reasons for not working. Items related to whether the person was working on December 31st of the data year were added in Panel 4 Round 3. Questions about whether the person's job was temporary or seasonal were added in 2000 (Panel 4 Round 5 and Panel 5 Round 3). Additional questions about health insurance, including whether it was offered to the person, whether it was offered to any employee, and why the person was not eligible were added in 2002 (Panel 6 Round 3 and Panel 7 Round 1).
Beginning in 2002, items related to job begin-and-end hours and shift changes were omitted (Panel 6 Round 4 and Panel 7 Round 2). Informed consent information regarding contacting employers who provide health insurance was added in 2004 (Panel 8 Round 3 and Panel 9 Round 1).
Publications: Publications are listed in reverse chronological order (most recent first).