Database name:
Absence from Work Survey

Thematic Coverage:
This supplement to the Labour Force Survey collects information about the prolonged absences from work by paid employees during the previous calendar year and determines the number of absences, the duration and the type of compensation received.
Maintained by:
Special Surveys Division, Statistics Canada
Availability:
A public version of the file is available through the Data Liberation Initiative (DLI). Some variables are suppressed and other are aggregated to protect the anonymity of individual survey respondents. Custom tabulations are available on a cost recovery basis.



Start Date:
1976
Release Date:
N/A - Discontinued in 1998
Frequency of collection:
Annual



Data Collection:
Sample of the working-aged population 15 years and older, based on the area sample of the Labour Force Survey. Data collected through telephone or personal interviews.
Sample size:
27,614 households



Geographic coverage:
All provinces, excluding residents of the Territories, inmates of institutions, full-time members of the Armed Forces and residents of Indian Reserves.
Lowest geographic
level collected:
Postal Code; the LFS uses a probability sample based on a stratified multi-stage design. The ultimate sampling unit of selection is the dwelling.
Lowest geographic
level of release:
Estimates produced at national/provincial level. Economic region (aggregated Census Divisions) and Census Metropolitan Area estimates are also available.
Existing rural variable:
Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) / Census Agglomeration (CA) and Non-CMA/CA are coded. Prince Edward Island has no CMA and the CMAs of Montreal and Toronto were each separate strata.

Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) / Census Agglomeration (CA) and Non-CMA/CA can be used as an urban / rural variable. CMA/CA and Non-CMA/CA can be used to construct a 5-level rural/urban variable. Urban core, urban fringe and rural fringe distinguish between central and peripheral urban and rural areas within a census metropolitan area (CMA) or census agglomeration (CA). Urban core is a large urban area around which a CMA or a CA is delineated. The urban core must have a population (based on the previous census) of at least 100,000 persons in the case of a CMA, or between 10,000 and 99,999 persons in the case of a CA. The urban core of a CA that has been merged with an adjacent CMA or larger CA is called the secondary urban core. Urban fringe is the urban area within a CMA or CA that is not contiguous to the urban core. It has a minimum population of 1,000 and a population density of at least 400 per square kilometre, based on the previous census counts. Rural fringe is all territory within a CMA or CA not classified as an urban core or an urban fringe. The other levels of geography in this classification are urban area (small towns) that lie outside of CMA and rural area lying outside of CMA.

Rural definitions that can be constructed from this database include (building block)*:
Census "rural areas"
(Enumeration Area)
Rural and Small Town definition
(Census Subdivision)
Metropolitan area and census agglomeration Influenced Zones
(Census Subdivision)
OECD "rural communities" definition
(Census Consolidated Subdivision)
OECD "predominantly rural regions" definition
(Census Division)
Ehrensaft's "Beale codes"
(Census Division)
* Results for these areas of geography could conceivably be derived from postal codes if respondent confidentiality is ensured.



Data Elements:
The types of absences of interest for this survey are those due to (with durations of two weeks or longer):
  • Illness
  • Accident
  • Pregnancy
For these types of absences, questions are asked to identify:
  • Which types of financial compensations have been received, if there were any
  • Duration of the compensations.
Notes:
The LFS uses a rotating panel sample design so that selected dwellings remain in the LFS sample for six consecutive months. One feature is that each of the six rotation groups can be used as a representative sample by itself.


This area contains documents in Portable Document Format (PDF). To view documents in PDF, you will need the Adobe Acrobat® Reader, which can be downloaded from the Adobe website.