Effects of interviewers on response to income and wealth items

Abstract

Item nonresponse to financial questions is a persistent source of survey error, especially in interviewer-administered surveys. We examine whether interviewers' expectations about respondents' willingness to report income are associated with actual item responses to income and asset questions in Wave 6 of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Using data from 41,934 respondents in 12 countries, linked to interviewer survey and roster information, we analyze responses to four financial items with substantial nonresponse. We compare three approaches to handling missing covariates: complete-case analysis, multiple imputation (fill-in methods), and a generalized missing-indicator framework with information-criterion-based model averaging. Across most specifications, respondents interviewed by interviewers with higher expected income response rates are more likely to provide financial information. However, model averaging does not yield clear gains over simpler approaches. The results suggest that interviewer expectations contain useful information for understanding and modeling item nonresponse to sensitive financial items, with potential implications for interviewer training and survey fieldwork design.