The importance of metadata in the use of

The importance of metadata in the use of administrative sources Workshop on statistical metadata (4 -6 July Vienna) An Taelemans & Mieke Booghmans

Outline of the presentation I. Datawarehouse Labour Market & Social Protection II. Setting III. Development of metadata strategy IV. Benefits of metadata V. Conclusion

I. Datawarehouse LM & SP • Collect and store administrative data of social security institutions • Population and coverage rate • Advantages: - Cost - Wide-ranging and detailled statistics - Linking administrative data

I. Datawarehouse LM & SP • Derived variables • Socio-economic position 1. Employed 2. Jobseeker 3. Professionally inactive 4. Other

Outline of the presentation I. Datawarehouse Labour Market & Social Protection II. Setting III. Development of metadata strategy IV. Benefits of metadata V. Conclusion

II. Setting • Agora research project (Belgian Science Policy) • Under the authority of Federal Public Service Social Security and Crossroads Bank for Social Security • Carried out by Centre for Sociological Research and Policy Research Centre Work and Social Economy (K. U. Leuven)

II. Setting • Problems of fragmented, inconsistent and insufficient metadata • Create comprehensive and high quality metadata • Three movements: - descriptive task - analysing task - task of evaluation

Outline of the presentation I. Datawarehouse Labour Market & Social Protection II. Setting III. Development of metadata strategy IV. Benefits of metadata V. Conclusion

III. Development • Why are metadata important? • What do we expect of these metadata? • How should metadata be collected and stored?

Why? • Administrative data were not originally compiled for statistical purposes • Interpretability • Data quality • Harmonisation and comparability

What? • Flexible • Comprehensive and consistent • Up-to-date • Accessible

How? • Need for efficient navigation and search • Benchmarking exercise • Variable centred metadata model

How? DWH GENERAL VARIABLES DATASETS CLASSIFICATIONS

How? Metadata items variables Name Removal date Abbreviation Schaansc Theme Self-employment Definition/description The date on which the association of a self-employed with the National Institute for the Social Security of the Self. Employed is ended. Derived variable? No Source (+ link to metadataset) National Institute for the Social Security of the Self. Employed (NISSE) Validity 1997 -now Measuring level (+ link to codelist) Ordinal (dd. mm. yy) Specifications/remarks The deletion date is not always registered on time. As a consequence a number of persons are wrongly registered as self employed. Yearly this affects 15 000 persons, or 2% of the total population of self-

Outline of the presentation I. Datawarehouse Labour Market & Social Protection II. Setting III. Development of metadata strategy IV. Benefits of metadata V. Conclusion

IV. Benefits of metadata • Average daily wage: complex and country specific • Removal date: interpretation problems • Job mobility: derived variable

Outline of the presentation I. Datawarehouse Labour Market & Social Protection II. Setting III. Development of metadata strategy IV. Benefits of metadata V. Conclusion

V. Conclusion • Metadata are indispensable for correct use and interpretation of administrative data • But: they cannot ensure that administrative data are correctly used and interpreted • Extensive (inter)national cooperation and exchange of best practises

Further information? • An Taelemans an. taelemans@soc. kuleuven. be • Mieke Booghmans mieke. booghmans@econ. kuleuven. be