Calculating hourly wage rates

The following is aimed at pointing you in the right direction if you want to calculate hourly wage rates. You would use the following derived variables:

• _esbrd DV: Labour force status – broad;
• _jbhruc DV: Combined hrs per week usually worked in all jobs;
• _wscei DV: Imputed current weekly gross wages & salary - all jobs ($) topcoded  

The hourly wage rate can be calculated in SPSS as follows:

if (aesbrd=1 and ajbhruc>0 and awscei>0) hwr01 = rnd(awscei/ajbhruc).
if (besbrd=1 and bjbhruc>0 and bwscei>0) hwr02 = rnd(bwscei/bjbhruc).
...
if (fesbrd=1 and fjbhruc>0 and fwscei>0) hwr06 = rnd(fwscei/fjbhruc).

The above only calculates the hourly wage rate (across all their jobs) if the respondent:

• is employed;
• has current wages and salaries; and
• has usual hours worked in all jobs.

If you wish to look at those that are full and part time employed separately, use _esdtl (DV: Labour force status – detail) to define these groups. The cases that did not need to be imputed can be identified using the flag _wscef =0.

If you wish to look at the hourly wage in the respondent’s main job, use _wscmei and _jbmhruc.

Please note that the questions about hours worked and income are asked in separate sections of the person questionnaire. As some respondents report low wages and salaries with high hours and vice versa, it is important that users are aware that there are some odd outliers when deriving hourly wage rates. This is, unfortunately, unavoidable.