TY - JOUR

T1 - Comparing the participation of millennials and older age cohorts in the cross-national online survey panel and the german internet panel

AU - Revilla, Melanie

AU - Höhne, Jan Karem

N1 - Funding Information: The authors are grateful to Annelies Blom and the members of the Z1 project (University of Mannheim) for collecting and providing the data of the German Internet Panel (waves 27 to 32). We also acknowledge financial support by the German Science Foundation through the Collaborative Research Center 884 “Political Economy of Reforms” at the University of Mannheim. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful comments on a previous version of the paper.

PY - 2020/9/25

Y1 - 2020/9/25

N2 - Millennials (1982 to 2003) witnessed a set of events during their lives that differentiated them from older age cohorts (Generation X, Boomers, and Silents). Thus, one can also expect that Millennials’ web survey participation differs from that of older cohorts. The goal of this study is to compare Millennials to older cohorts on different aspects related to web survey partic-ipation: participation rates, break-off rates, smartphone participation, survey evaluation, and data quality. We use data from two online probability-based panels covering four countries: the CROss-National Online Survey (CRONOS) panel in Estonia, Slovenia, and the UK, and the German Internet Panel (GIP). We find significantly lower participation rate for Millennials than for older cohorts and higher break-off rate for Millennials than for older cohorts in two countries. Smartphone participation is significantly higher for Millennials than for Generation X and Boomers in three countries. Comparing Millennials and Silents, we find that Millen-nials smartphone participation is significantly higher in two countries. There are almost no differences in survey evaluation and data quality across age cohorts in the descriptive analyses, but some age cohort effects in regression analyses. These results suggest that it is necessary to develop new strategies to encourage Millennials’ participation in online surveys.

AB - Millennials (1982 to 2003) witnessed a set of events during their lives that differentiated them from older age cohorts (Generation X, Boomers, and Silents). Thus, one can also expect that Millennials’ web survey participation differs from that of older cohorts. The goal of this study is to compare Millennials to older cohorts on different aspects related to web survey partic-ipation: participation rates, break-off rates, smartphone participation, survey evaluation, and data quality. We use data from two online probability-based panels covering four countries: the CROss-National Online Survey (CRONOS) panel in Estonia, Slovenia, and the UK, and the German Internet Panel (GIP). We find significantly lower participation rate for Millennials than for older cohorts and higher break-off rate for Millennials than for older cohorts in two countries. Smartphone participation is significantly higher for Millennials than for Generation X and Boomers in three countries. Comparing Millennials and Silents, we find that Millen-nials smartphone participation is significantly higher in two countries. There are almost no differences in survey evaluation and data quality across age cohorts in the descriptive analyses, but some age cohort effects in regression analyses. These results suggest that it is necessary to develop new strategies to encourage Millennials’ participation in online surveys.

KW - Age cohorts

KW - Break-off

KW - Data quality

KW - Millennials

KW - Probability-based online panels

KW - Smartphones

KW - Survey evaluation

KW - Survey participation rates

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85098739510&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.18148/srm/2020.v14i5.7619

DO - 10.18148/srm/2020.v14i5.7619

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85098739510

VL - 14

SP - 499

EP - 513

JO - Survey research methods

JF - Survey research methods

SN - 1864-3361

IS - 5

ER -