CA Work & Health Survey

In November 2022, the Labor Lab launched the California Work and Health Survey (CWHS), a population-based survey of 5,000 working age Californians, focusing on work arrangements, job characteristics, physical and mental health, health behaviors, and financial well-being. For further details about the survey, or to request access to the data (available mid-2023), please contact us at: [email protected].

 

Questionnaire Outline

Employment

  1. Current employment status – past 7 days
  2. Number of jobs in past 7 & 30 days, hours and weeks worked in year
  3. Among non-working: job seeking, availability/desire to work, time since last worked
  4. For main job & second job (past week OR past 30 days):
    1. Occupation, industry, job tenure
    2. Employment arrangements: how employed/paid/contingent employment
      1. Self-employment status
      2. Payment methods, tax reporting
      3. App-based work
      4. Potential independent contractor misclassification
      5. Employment agency or contract work
    3. Job characteristics
      1. Physical demands
      2. Psychosocial demands, workplace surveillance, bullying
      3. Shifts, flexibility, work from home
      4. Sick pay, pension, health benefits, union contract
  5. Employment history
    1. Displacement in past 3 years
    2. Occupation/industry/tenure of longest-held job
    3. Time out of workforce
    4. Experience of employment discrimination
  6. Caregiving responsibilities, paid and unpaid

Health

  1. General physical and mental health status; activity limitations
  2. Pain and other physical symptoms
  3. Experience of stress
  4. Chronic illness battery
  5. Workplace injury
  6. Health behaviors: smoking, alcohol, exercise
  7. Height and weight
  8. Health insurance status

Sociodemographic and Financial Well-being

  1. Age (18-70) and gender
  2. Race and ethnicity
  3. Marital status and household size/composition
  4. Education of self (and spouse/partner)
  5. Household income and federal poverty status
  6. Individual earnings, sources of income and benefits
  7. Home ownership and homelessness
  8. Financial stability