Some characteristics of inaccessible respondents in a telephone survey

Abstract

514 city employees answered a series of questions on birth date, employment, seniority, monthly salary, occupation, and 18-yr-old voters. Refusal rates were examined across ethnicity, salary, and age, with the highest rate occurring for the oldest age group. Overall percentage of refusals (10.9%) and pattern of refusals by age were similar to those of face-to-face surveys. An analysis of 140 inaccessible black respondents (refusers and those not reached) indicated an unusually high inaccessibility rate (42%). Neither refusals nor inaccessibility resulted in large differences between the distributions of persons contacted and persons interviewed. Thus, the chance of bias in the survey responses seems minimal. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)