Examples of representative surveys
Statistics Poland carries out about 30 representative surveys and the most important ones are:
- HBS – Household Budget Survey;
- LFS – Labour Force Survey;
- EU-SILC – European Union - Community Statistics on Income and Living Conditions.
The above surveys belong to the group of social surveys. Other surveys conducted by Statistics Poland include agricultural and enterprise surveys.
The most important sample surveys in the area of agriculture include:
- Farm structure survey (R-SGR);
- The population survey of cattle, sheep, poultry and livestock production (R-ZW-B);
- Survey of pig population and pork production (R-ZW-S).
The most important elements related to the sampling process and generalization of research results, e.g. information regarding sampling frame, sampling scheme, sample selection methodology and methodology for generalizing results are included in the Statistics Poland’s publications regarding a given study (usually in the chapter entitled ‘Methodological notes’). Electronic versions of the publications are available on the Statistics Poland Information Portal. Detailed information on specific survey topics is also presented there in the form of the so-called methodological reports, available at
Statistics Poland / Metainformation / Methodological reports.
Samples for most representative surveys are drawn once a year, but there are also surveys for which the sample is drawn four times a year or every few years.
The most time-consuming surveys for the network of statistical interviewers are:
- HBS;
- LFS;
- Survey on participation of Polish residents in travel.
These are surveys carried out in all weeks of a given year/quarter.
In most studies, there is rotation, i.e. in a given year, in addition to ‘new’ addresses, addresses drawn in previous years are also taken into account.
We distinguish primary and reserve samples. The reserve sample is used if no response is received from the unit in the primary sample. As a consequence, there are more responses, but the bias in the results may increase. Reserve samples are currently being drawn for the following surveys:
- HBS;
- EU-SILC;
- Survey on information society;
- Survey on participation of Polish residents in travel.
Own elaboration: Statistics Poland, Department for Innovation