• DOI:10.1093/IJPOR/EDN007
• Corpus ID: 33820854

Effects of Interviewer Gender on Survey Responses: Findings from a Household Survey in Mexico

@article{FloresMacias2008EffectsOI,
  title={Effects of Interviewer Gender on Survey Responses: Findings from a Household Survey in Mexico},
  author={Francisco Flores-Macias and Chappell Lawson},
  journal={International Journal of Public Opinion Research},
  year={2008},
  volume={20},
  pages={100-110}
}

• Francisco Flores-Macias, Chappell Lawson
• Published 1 March 2008
• Sociology
• International Journal of Public Opinion Research

In the social sciences, most studies on gender-of-interviewer effects have focused on questions dealing with sexual behavior and gender roles, as well as on response rates. Results from these analyses have been mixed, sometimes showing little evidence of effects (Johnson & DeLamater, ; Johnson & Moore, ) and other times suggesting non-trivial biases (Landis, Sullivan & Sheley, ; Galla, Frisone, Jeffrey, & Gaer, ; Lueptow, Moser, & Pendleton, ; Catania et al., ; Tu & Liao, ). In addition, response effects have not always been found in the same direction. While Galla et al. () argue that more ‘non-traditional’ responses occur for both male and female respondents only when facing a female interviewer, Lueptow et al. () and Huddy et al. () sustain that effects are stronger among female respondents who are interviewed by another female, and Kane and Macaulay () claim that ‘more egalitarian’ answers are more pervasive among male respondents interviewed by a woman. Only a few studies have explored the existence of bias attributable to the gender of the interviewer on political questions. Although these analyses have provided invaluable preliminary evidence on gender-of-interviewer effects, they have failed to yield statistically significant effects on the interaction between the gender of the interviewer and the gender of the respondent (Kane & Macaulay, ; Huddy et al., ). The one exception is the early study by Landis et al. (), who used a sample of  female college students in a town in the Western United States and found statistically significant evidence that female interviewers elicited more feminist responses. Using a nationally representative telephone survey in the United States, Kane and Macaulay () analyzed potential interviewer-gender effects for a variety of questions, including some dealing with public policy on women’s rights. They found that, although responses to some items appeared to be influenced by the gender of the