Survey respondents are asked to report their household income before tax in a typical year. The monthly or annual context is determined by what is the norm in each country.
To permit cross-country analysis, this income data is then grouped into bands (low, medium low, medium high, high). This allocation is localized, so ‘low income’ is relative to others in that country. This also means that ‘low’ can and typically will have different definitions from one country to another as shown below.From Q1 2024 onwards, the bands are updated once a year head of January fieldwork, factoring in wage inflation in each region.
The scale setting needs to balance the conflicting needs between the need for scales to represent inflationary movement versus the need to have reasonably rounded scale values and consistent spreads (respondent friendly). The ‘cleaner’ the scales, the harder is it to exactly mirror wage inflation in bands. We seek to strike a balance here as achieving all three is not always possible, especially at lower inflation levels where rounding plays a bigger role.
For more information, speak to your local GfK Account Manager or contact GfK support.