The Survey and Data Collection
To provide the evidential basis to understand work employment for such public policy analysis we collected robust data from a representative sample of workers across the island of Ireland aged from 16 years upwards using the same research instrument with harmonised measures. This provides the reliable data needed for the conduct of comparisons across the two jurisdictions.
The current survey is the second such Working in Ireland Survey. The first survey (WIIS 1) was conducted in 2021, but was specific to the Republic of Ireland. Details of that survey can be found at: https://www.smurfitschool.ie/facultyresearch/jobqualitystudy/overviewofstudy/
The 2025 survey (WIIS 2) is larger in its reach; the sample size is bigger and includes workers in Northern Ireland. It is also more ambitious in the range of topics examined.
In all, a representative sample of 4,300 workers have been interviewed. This includes 3,040 respondents in the Republic of Ireland and 1,260 in Northern Ireland. The difference in the sample sizes reflects the differences in the populations sizes in both jurisdictions and the prior existence of a panel sample in the Republic.
The sample for the Republic of Ireland includes 2,638 new respondents (we refer to this as the “new sample”) and 402 respondents who had been surveyed in the first iteration of WIIS (we refer to this as the “panel sample”).
The panel sample will be used primarily to assess the extent to which the job quality of individual workers changed over the time period between 2021 and 2025. Both the “new sample” and the “panel sample” can be analysed separately and they can also be integrated into a “complete sample”. When the latter is undertaken, appropriate weights can be applied to the panel sample to ensure that the complete sample is cross-sectionally representative of all workers in 2025. This will obviously only apply to those workers surveyed in the Republic of Ireland. A panel element is not included for the Northern Ireland sample but this can be provided for in subsequent iterations of the survey.
Like WIIS 1, the data for WIIS 2 were collected by means of telephone interviewing. The benefit of sticking with a similar mode of data collection across the two waves of the survey is it permits the research team to examine how the labour market in the Republic of Ireland has changed in the intervening four years. Future waves of the survey will permit us to conduct similar analyses of developments over time in Northern Ireland.