Unemployment and willingness to accept job offers: results of a factorial survey experiment

Journal for Labour Market Research

Table 1 Vignette Dimensions and Levels^a

Dimensions		Levels
Dimensions		1	2	3
1	Increase in net income of household^b	5 levels, from plus 0 % to plus 80 %
2	Weekly working hours	20 hours	30 hours	40 hours
3	Over-qualification for offered job	None	Slight	Considerable
4	Prospects of internal promotion	None	Few	Many
5	Contract duration	Permanent	Limited to 1 year	Limited to 3 years
6	Distance from home (one-way commuting time)	1 hour	4 hours	6 hours
7	Local employment opportunities compared with actual residence	Worse	Similar	Better
8	Difficulty of finding adequate housing	Very easy	Some effort	Considerable effort

^a Not displayed here is an additional dimension concerned with employment opportunities for the partner of the respondent at the new place of residence. This dimension was presented to 50 % of the respondents in partnerships. Because the internal partnership dynamics involved with mobility decisions are not the focus of this paper, we determined to forgo the consideration of this dimension in the analyses described here.
^b The increase in income was presented to the respondents as the resulting absolute Euro amount of household income after acceptance of the job offer. The amount represented the (experimentally varied) percentage increase in the actual household income, which respondents had indicated earlier in the interview. Absolute amounts rather than percentages were used to present more tangible job offers. In the experiment design, gains in income were weighted using the working hours to create realistic offers. High percentage increases were overrepresented to present attractive offers.