Crossref 0 Occupational Credentials and Job Qualities of Direct Care Workers: Implications for Labor Shortages, Journal of Labor Research, 2020. Analyzing the Labor Market Outcomes of Occupational Licensing, Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 2018. No Bars: Unlocking the Economic Power of the Formerly Incarcerated, SSRN Electronic Journal , 2016. Professional certifications and occupational licenses: evidence from the Current Population Survey, Monthly Labor Review, 2019. While sources of federal data on educational attainment are plentiful, information on nondegree credentials, such as professional certifications and state or industry licenses, is much more limited. Including a small set of questions about certifications and licenses on the Current Population Survey (CPS)—the monthly source of labor force statistics published by the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics—would add valuable information about the labor market and would enable researchers and policymakers to examine how these types of credentials affect labor market success. After a lengthy development process, three questions on certifications and licenses were added to the monthly CPS in January 2015. This article describes the process of developing the CPS questions, starting with the early work on question development done by the Interagency Working Group on Expanded Measures of Enrollment and Attainment (GEMEnA), which was formed late in 2009. It then describes the work done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to adapt the questions developed by GEMEnA to the CPS, the development and acceptance of a proposal to add the questions, the fielding of the questions, and the first publication of results. There are many sources of federal data on educational attainment. These measures generally use the traditional educational attainment categories, which range from less than a high school diploma through a bachelor’s degree or higher. However, many other credentials appear to be valuable in the labor market, such as professional certifications and state or industry licenses. Until recently, there were few federal sources of data on these types of credentials. In response to the increased interest in data about alternative credentials, the Interagency Working Group on Expanded Measures of Enrollment and Attainment (GEMEnA) was formed late in 2009 and continued into 2016. GEMEnA was chaired by the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). Over the years, members included senior staff from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the Census Bureau, the Council of Economic Advisors, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Under Secretary, the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, and the OMB. GEMEnA worked on a variety of education- and credential-related subjects, including certifications and licenses.1 Two of GEMEnA’s main goals were In 2009, President Obama called for Americans to commit to achieving at least 1 year of higher education or career training,3 and as a result, GEMEnA concentrated its initial research efforts on subbaccalaureate certifications and licenses. Over time, however, GEMEnA expanded its scope to include certifications and licenses at all educational levels. This article describes the process of developing the questions on certifications and licenses for the Current Population Survey (CPS),4 starting with the early work on question development done by GEMEnA. It then describes the work done by BLS to adapt the questions to the CPS, the development and acceptance of a proposal to add the questions, the fielding of the questions, and the first publication of results. GEMEnA began its work on certifications and licenses by conducting a literature review, consulting with subject matter experts, and reviewing the credential-related questions that existed on a variety of nonfederal surveys. After these efforts, the group identified two distinct types of credentials that are commonly referred to as certifications or licenses: (1) those that are awarded by a certification body and reflect the acquisition of a level of skill in an occupation but do not convey a legal authority to work in that occupation and (2) those awarded by a governmental body that convey a legal authority to work in an occupation. Because there was some confusion about how the two terms were used, GEMEnA created working definitions for certifications and licenses. These definitions were a first step in developing the common language to better discuss these credentials. (See table 1.)
| Characteristic | Certification | License |
|---|---|---|
| Awarded by whom | A credential awarded by a nongovernmental certification body on the basis of individuals demonstrating, through an examination process, that they have acquired the designated knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform a specific job; the examination can be written, oral, or performance based | A credential awarded by a governmental licensing agency on the basis of predetermined criteria; the criteria may include some combination of degree attainment, certifications, educational certificates, assessment, apprenticeship programs, or work experience |
| Legal authority | Does not convey a legal authority to work in an occupation | Conveys a legal authority to work in an occupation |
| Renewal | Time limited, renewed through a recertification process(1) | Time limited, must be renewed periodically |
| Examples | Information technology certification and project management professional certification | Cosmetology license and teacher’s license |
| Notes: (1) Some certifications are time limited but do not have a recertification process. For example, many information technology certifications are for a specific software that becomes obsolete when it is replaced with a newer version. Source: Interagency Working Group on Expanded Measures of Enrollment and Attainment and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. | ||
| GEMEnA also investigated a third type of nondegree credential—educational certificates. According to GEMEnA definitions, educational certificates, which are awarded by an educational institution upon the recipient’s completion of all requirements for a program of study, are not the same as certifications and licenses. GEMEnA’s background research showed that certifications and licenses are quite distinct from educational certificates. Certifications and licenses are job or occupational requirements which demonstrate that the holder has the authority or skills that are needed to perform specific job duties. By contrast, educational certificates are awarded to show completion of a program of study; while this training may help in the performance of a specific job, educational certificates are not necessarily required or considered proof of qualification.5 Like educational certificates, certificates of attendance or participation in short-term training are also considered to be different from certifications and licenses. | ||
| After developing definitions of certifications and licenses, GEMEnA decided that some exploratory qualitative research would be helpful. In December 2009, NCES funded three focus groups in the Washington, DC, area on nondegree credentials. Reflecting GEMEnA’s early interest in subbaccalaureate certifications and licenses, the focus group participants were ages 21 to 40 and had at least a high school diploma or GED (a high school equivalency diploma) but did not have a bachelor’s degree. Two of the focus groups were composed of people who said they were certified, registered, or licensed in a health care, information technology, or business field. A third focus group was made up of individuals who said they had a certification in another field or who were interested in obtaining a certification.6 | ||
| In 2010, NCES also funded three rounds of cognitive testing (60 interviews total) to determine whether people could answer questions about nondegree credentials. Participants included individuals with certifications or licenses as well as those without these credentials. Because of the concern that there might be regional differences, the interviews were conducted with people in three different areas: Washington, DC; Charlotte, NC; and Minneapolis, MN. Respondents were ages 21 to 40. The first round of testing concentrated on certifications and licenses, the second on educational certificates, and the third on both types of credentials.7 | ||
| In general, the focus groups and cognitive testing confirmed that respondents were aware of their certifications and licenses and were able to answer questions about them. For many, these types of credentials were necessary for their jobs, either because the law or their employer required them. Particularly in some occupations, respondents often had more than one credential. Also, respondents did not confuse these credentials with the traditional educational attainment categories, and often closely associated certifications and licenses with their work. | ||
| Because of the interest in distinguishing between certifications and licenses, GEMEnA investigated the possibility of asking respondents to identify their credentials as either a certification or a license. However, in both the focus groups and the cognitive interviews, some participants found it difficult to distinguish between the two types of credentials, with a few saying that they thought the two terms were synonymous. Many factors contribute to this confusion. In some fields, certification is a prerequisite for applying for a license—such as a financial planner who must first become a certified financial planner before applying for a license through a state board of standards. The reverse is also true in some fields—that is, the individual must first obtain a license before becoming certified. For example, a real estate agent may need to get a license before being certified in a specialization area. In addition, in some fields, both “certification” and “license” may be used to refer to the same type of credential. For example, all states have credentialing requirements for public school teachers. These requirements are variously referred to as teaching licenses, certifications, credentials, or certificates. However, although state requirements vary, all of these credentials are issued by a governmental agency and convey a legal authority to teach school. Thus, according to GEMEnA definitions, these credentials are considered licenses. | ||
| Rather than asking about certifications and licenses separately, GEMEnA decided to test whether the two types of credentials could be asked about together. In the third round of cognitive testing, both the terms “certification” and “license” were used in the same question—that is, people were not asked to distinguish between the two but simply to indicate yes or no as to whether they had a “certification or license.” This approach was found to work well.8 | ||
| The 2010 Adult Training and Education Survey (ATES) pilot study was an NCES-sponsored 15-minute mail and telephone survey that was fielded from September 2010 to January 2011. A major goal of this study was to evaluate proposed questions on certifications and licenses.9 The pilot study was designed to evaluate estimates generated from the questions, investigate the extent of measurement error, and determine whether proxy respondents—that is, respondents who provide information about other members of their households—could accurately answer the questions.10 | ||
| The pilot contained a nationally representative sample of 3,730 adults age 18 and over. Although the pilot was never intended to provide official population estimates, weights were developed so that nationally representative estimates could be generated. Although no federal data on certifications and licenses existed at the time, there had been periodic attempts, using nonfederal surveys, to measure the numbers of people with certifications or licenses. Pilot-study estimates were compared with estimates from the Princeton Data Improvement Initiative (PDII), a survey that had been conducted in 2008 and included questions on occupational licensing. To create comparable estimates, the ATES and PDII samples were restricted to employed adults. According to the ATES, 38 percent of employed adults had a certification or license, compared with 34 percent in the PDII. Although these estimates are not identical, the difference is relatively small, especially given that the two surveys were conducted 2 years apart and had a number of differences in their questionnaires. GEMEnA concluded that estimates from the ATES questions were reasonable as compared with previous data collection efforts. | ||
| In addition to including the nationally representative sample, the ATES included a nonrandom sample of 340 adults who were known to hold nondegree credentials. Some of the adults in this seeded sample had been reported by a credentialing body to have received a certification or license.11 The seeded sample contained people in the following certified or licensed occupations: alcohol and drug counselor or aide; health technician, specialist, or sonographer; pharmacy technician; electrical aide; plumber; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning technician; and fuel technician. The seeded sample was included specifically to evaluate how well respondent answers lined up with the administrative data, allowing for the calculation of underreporting rates. Here are the underreporting rates (in percent) of certifications and licenses by age and employment status: | ||
| Total | 15.0 | |
| 18 to 34 years | 19.0 | |
| 35 to 64 years | 11.6 | |
| 65 years and over | 29.2 | |
| Employed by a private company | 15.4 | |
| Employed by government or nonprofit, or self-employed | 6.9 | |
| Not employed | 45.8 | |
| Certification | 17.1 | |
| License | 13.7 | |
| Although the underreporting rates vary for different groups, there are few statistically significant differences across different subgroups. A multivariate analysis showed that differences in underreporting rates are driven, in part, by employment status, with employed people being more likely than the not employed to accurately report that they have a certification or license. This difference may reflect the fact that a certification or license could be more meaningful for people who are employed and who, therefore, have these credentials for work-related reasons. Those who have credentials but are not employed—the majority of whom are not looking for work—may not view them as relevant and thus might be less likely to report them. Also, while considerable effort was made to find current and accurate administrative records for the seeded sample, the measurement error associated with these records is unknown. It is possible that some reporting differences could be due to errors in the seeded sample frame. After taking all of these factors into account, GEMEnA determined that the underreporting rates in the pilot were within acceptable ranges.12 | ||
| Many federal household surveys use proxy respondents. Thus, a key factor in developing questions to include on existing surveys was to determine whether respondents could answer the questions about others in their households. To evaluate the questions for proxy respondents, the 2010 ATES pilot study, in a subsample of about 1,000 households with 2 or more adults, asked adults to report about other adults in their household. The study did not include multiple respondents from the same households, so direct comparisons between self-responses and proxy responses about individuals could not be done. Instead, GEMEnA compared the frequencies of self-responses and proxy responses to determine whether there were large differences in the incidence of “don’t know” responses. High rates of nonresponse among proxies might lead to bias in the survey estimates and would mean the questions were unsuitable for surveys relying on proxy respondents. However, nonresponse rates for proxy respondents were fairly low for the main certification and license questions, and GEMEnA determined that proxy reporting was acceptable for these questions.13 | ||
| After all the ATES results had been examined, GEMEnA made several recommendations.14 Because of cost constraints and concerns about increasing respondent burden, most federal household surveys—particularly large surveys like the CPS—can add no more than a few questions, and so GEMEnA recommended only a small number of questions. The group suggested that surveys include the following: | ||
| A number of federal surveys have added GEMEnA questions on certifications and licenses. The first federal survey to include questions developed by GEMEnA was the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). In the autumn of 2012, nine questions on certifications and licenses were added to the 13th wave of the 2008 SIPP. These included the main questions recommended by GEMEnA as well as questions about whether coursework was required to earn the credential, the main reason for obtaining the credential, and whether the credential could be used to get a job with any employer in the field.16 | ||
| After the SIPP had been fielded, the questions were proposed for a number of other federal household surveys, such as the National Science Foundation’s National Survey of College Graduates and several NCES surveys. The number of questions each survey could include varied according to the goals of the survey and how much of the questionnaire could be devoted to the topic.17 | ||
| Because of the successful use of the questions in other surveys, BLS, the Census Bureau, NCES, and GEMEnA members began to consider whether the questions would be a valuable addition to the CPS. | ||
| The CPS is a survey of approximately 60,000 households that is jointly sponsored by BLS and the Census Bureau. The survey is probably best known for the national unemployment rate, which is published every month by BLS. Statistics from the CPS are among the country’s most timely economic indicators and are widely used by policymakers and researchers. The CPS provides extensive information about the employment and unemployment status of the population, and the survey data can be broken out by a variety of demographic characteristics, such as race and ethnicity, educational attainment, disability status, age, and gender. In addition, the CPS is a primary source of socioeconomic data about the labor force, including industry and occupation, hours of work, and earnings. | ||
| Including a small set of questions about certifications and licenses would add valuable information about the labor market and would enable researchers and policymakers to examine how these types of credentials affect labor market success. Unemployment rates and other key labor market indicators could be compared for those with and without certifications and licenses and could be broken out by the many demographic and labor force characteristics already collected in the CPS. | ||
| The core part of the survey is referred to as the monthly CPS (or the basic CPS). Households are in the survey for 8 months total on what is referred to as a 4-8-4 rotation—that is, they are in the sample for 4 months, out of the sample for the next 8 months, and back in the sample for the following 4 months. For example, a household that was scheduled to be interviewed for the first time in April would also be contacted in May, June, and July. The household would then be out of the sample for the next 8 months and would return to the sample the following April, May, June, and July. | ||
| In addition to the monthly CPS, there are periodic CPS supplements, which are typically included in a particular month of the year. Supplements are sets of questions on a specific topic and generally take no longer than 10 minutes to administer. The best known of the supplements is the Annual Social and Economic Survey (ASEC), also sometimes referred to as the “March supplement”; this supplement is the source of th |