Abstract

Methodical research has identified demographics, the timing of the day and week, paradata, past wave survey responses, employment characteristics, personality, health status, and many other aspects as predictors of nonresponse in interviewer-administered survey modes. However, other (unstudied) variables may influence the likelihood of nonresponse. One understudied and essential example could be the weather.Most studies analyze weather as a daily or even more long-term influence. We argue that the immediate weather conditions at the time of the contact attempt should substantially influence (non) response. Past research has shown that the weather affects daily activities and the time spent at home. More precisely, fair weather (e.g., higher temperatures, no rain) provides an opportunity for many outdoor activities (e.g., swimming, concerts, camping, and outdoor sports). Thus, weather conditions affect the opportunity costs of participating in the survey. Contact attempts could be more successful during lousy weather compared to good weather.In addition, the weather could influence the decision to participate in the survey by affecting the mental and physical health and life satisfaction. For instance, individuals could be more likely to reject a survey request during lousy weather than moderate weather conditions. The present study addresses this research gap by analyzing the effect of different weather conditions on the probability of contact and response (given successful contact). We prepared a unique longitudinal data set, combining detailed contact data from a large-scale interviewer-administered German panel study with spatially and temporally fine-grained open-source weather information. With this data, we can study weather effects at the respondent’s precise location and at the time of the contact attempt. By factoring in the weather for survey field work, our results can help increase interviewer-administrated data collection efficiency.