Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia

Information Society Statistics unit

Milana Rakica 5, Belgrade

The EU survey on the use of ICT in households and by individuals is an annual survey conducted since 2002. In Republic of Serbia, it has been conducted since 2006.

In 2022, the survey collects data on the access to information and communication technologies (ICT), on the use of the internet, e-government, e-commerce, internet of things, as well as green ICT.

National language: Употреба информационо–комуникационих технологија у Републици Србији

English: Usage of information and communication technologies in the Republic of Serbia

Questionnaire(s) in national language(s) and the translation in English are available in the Annexes.

The following common concepts and definitions apply under the Integrated European Social Statistics (IESS):

• the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) 2011 published in the following breakdowns: low (ISCED levels 0-2: no formal education, primary education or lower secondary education), medium (ISCED levels 3-4: upper secondary or post-secondary non-tertiary education) and high (ISCED levels 5-6: tertiary programmes which normally need a successful completion of ISCED 3 or 4, or second-stage tertiary education leading to an advanced research qualification);
• the International Standard Classification for Occupation ISCO-08 at the 2-digit level;
• the Classification of Economic Activities (NACE Rev.2-2008), at section level;
• the Common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS 1) – finer granularity of NUTS 2 is provided on optional basis by some Member states;
• the SCL - Geographical code list;
• information about household income is provided at lower level of detail. 

Additional classifications used in the national questionnaire:   No additional classification

The ICT survey in households and by individuals covers those households having at least one member in the age group 16 to 74 years old. Internet access of households refers to the percentage of households that have an internet access, so that anyone in the household could use the internet.

No differences

The survey is collecting data of internet users, individuals who have used the internet in the three months prior to the survey. Regular internet users are individuals who used the internet, on average, at least once a week in the three months prior to the survey.

This annual survey is used to benchmark ICT-driven developments, both by following developments for core variables over time and by looking in greater depth at other aspects at a specific point in time. While the survey initially concentrated on access and connectivity issues, its scope has subsequently been extended to cover a variety of subjects (for example, the use of e-government and e-commerce) and socio-economic analysis (such as regional diversity, gender specificity, differences in age, education and the employment situation). The scope of the survey with respect to different technologies is also adapted so as to cover new product groups and means of delivering communication technologies to end-users.

For more details on the methodology applicable in each survey year, please consult the Methodological Manual for the respective year on CIRCABC - Methodological Manual - Information society statistics (europa.eu).

Deviations from standard ICT concepts:  No deviations

Households and Individuals

In the ICT usage survey, the target population for the different statistical units is:

- individuals: all individuals aged 16 to 74;

- households: all (private) households with at least one member aged 16 to 74. 

Target population composed of households and/or individuals:

• Number of households: 2 174 642
• Number of individuals:  5 201 526

Non-compulsory age groups also included in the target population:

All households and persons referring to the “usual population’’ that reside in the territory of the Republic of Serbia, without Region Kosovo and Metohia. 

Year 2022

Not applicable

Percentages of ‘Households’ and Percentages of ‘Individuals’

Last three months before the interview

15/02/2022-28/02/2022

The legal basis for the 2022 EU survey on the use of ICT in households and by individuals is the Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 October 2019 establishing a common framework for European statistics relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected from samples (OJ  L 261 I, 14.10.2019, p. 1), as implemented by the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/1223 of 27 July 2021 specifying the technical items of the data set, establishing the technical formats for transmission of information and specifying the detailed arrangements and content of the quality reports on the organisation of a sample survey in the use of information and communication technologies domain for reference year 2022 pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council (OJ L 2269, 27.07.2021, pp. 1-45).

Complementary national legislation constituting the legal basis for the survey on the use of ICT in households and by individuals: 

Law on Official Statistics (“Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia, No 104/09) and Plan of Official Statistics (“Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia” Nos 55/05, 71/05 – corrigendum, 101/07, 65/08, 16/11, 68/12 – CS, 72/12, 7/14 – CS, 44/14 and 30/18 – other law)

Other authorized producers of official statistics shall be obliged to cooperate with the Office on the methodology of statistical surveys that are envisaged by annual implementation plans, and when required, they consult the Office on the methodology and databases that they determine. In case of disagreement between the authorized producers of official statistics and the Office in relation to the issues as described in paragraph 1 hereof, the Office shall be obliged to advise respectively the Government, in writing and within 30 days after the disagreement was stated. Right to access individual data of other authorized producers of official statistics.

The Office shall have the right to access individual data resulting from the surveys of other authorized producers of official statistics, in case these data are essential for conducting the activities of official statistics or for the evaluation of data quality. The right to access individual data resulting from the surveys of the National Bank of Serbia shall be granted with prior written consent by the Governor of the National Bank of Serbia. Right to access administrative data sources

The Office shall have the right to access all administrative data sources in charge of government authorities, including identification codes, if necessary, as well as the right to access the data collected by constant monitoring and observation method, unless their statistical use is explicitly prohibited by law. The holders of administrative data sources and of data collected by constant monitoring and observation method are obliged to forward the data to the Office in accordance with the adopted Plan and in a way as agreed that shall entail no extra costs for the data holders, except in cases when these data are subject to special processing

The data collected, processed and stored for the purpose of official statistics shall be considered as confidential when a physical person or a legal entity could be identified, directly or indirectly, by name (title), address or identification number. The authorized producers of official statistics shall use all means to preclude any possible, direct or indirect, individual identification of a reporting unit. Confidential data may be used for statistical purposes only. Therefore, the authorities of the republic government, the autonomous provinces’ government, the local government and other public authorities may not use the data and information compiled as official statistics for the purpose of defining the rights and obligations of a reporting unit.

The authorized producers of official statistics are obliged to take all relevant administrative, technical and organizational measures required to protect confidential data from illegal access, disclosure or use. In a special set of regulations or other legal act, the authorized producers of official statistics shall define in more details the measures and procedures of data confidentiality protection, in accordance with this law.

Access to confidential data shall be restricted to the persons that in line of their duty produce official statistics and to the extent to which these data are required for the production of official statistics. The persons who in line of their duty have access to confidential data are under obligation to conform to the provisions of this law, even upon cessation of their term of office with statistical authorities.

21/10/2022

There is a release calendar for the statistical outputs 

https://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/calendar

https://www.stat.gov.rs/media/3409/dissemination-policy.pdf

Annual

Information not available

https://publikacije.stat.gov.rs/G2022/Pdf/G202216017.pdf

https://data.stat.gov.rs/?caller=27&languageCode=sr-Cyrl

 Information not available

Microdata are not disseminated.

Information not available

Information not available

https://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/istrazivanja/referentni-metapodaci

Information not available

1. The Methodological Manual provides guidelines and standards for the implementation of the survey in the Member States. The manual is updated and adapted every year according to the content of the model questionnaire. Furthermore, the use of the Eurostat model questionnaire improves comparability of the results of the survey among participating countries.

2. Procedure for hiring interviewers (Tender and subsequent Selection Decisions published on the Intranet)

3. Training of interviewers for ICT research

4. Continuous control of interviewers (listening, daily control of survey results)

5. Validation according to Eurostat rules

6. Preparation of a national Quality Report and reference metadata (used for quality assessment)

7. Conducting self-assessment by filling out a self-assessment questionnaire and preparing an accompanying report (self-assessment) - also for quality assessment

The SORS (Statistical office of the Republic of Serbia) quality management system is relied on the Serbian official statistics mission and vision, as well as on the European Statistics Code of Practice – CoP and the Total Quality Management – TQM principles, which together make the common quality framework of the European Statistical system (ESS). Based on this framework SORS prepared main strategic documents on quality, like Declaration on quality, Quality policy, Quality strategy, as well as different guidelines and procedures for ensuring quality of statistical production.

For more information, please see the documents at http://www.stat.gov.rs/en-US/o-nama/sistem-upravljanja-kvalitetom.

Indicators of ICT usage in households are produced in accordance with methodological requirements and standards. Data are compared with previous and corresponding period and checks with different source are made.  The publication schedule is fixed and announced in advance.

Main user at national level is RATEL (Republic Agency for Electronic Communications) and Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications.

RATEL (Republic Agency for Electronic Communications) has evaluated positively the data quality on the ICT usage in households and by individuals.

Missing variables (not transmitted to Eurostat):

Mandatory variables:

• DEG_URBA

SORS can not provide this variables since there is no legal act with defined methodological criteria for type of settlements that would be valid for the whole territory of the Republic of Serbia. However, a new methodology about level of urbanization at national level is in the progress of development and there is hope that it will be finished next year with some longer time line for National assembly to adopt it.

Optional variables:

• IUPCAST
• IGOVPOST
• IRGOVEID
• IIGOVEID
• IIGOVPAY
• BOTS
• ECO_PP
• ECO_PHD
• ECO_PECD
• ECO_PEG
• ECO_PEE
• ECO_PTBS
• ECO_PX
• ECO_PBX
• NACE1D
• GEO_NUTS3
• HH_POP_16_24
• HH_POP_16_24S
• HH_POP_25_64
• HH_POP_65_MAX
• HH_CHILD_14_15
• HH_CHILD_5_13
• HH_CHILD_LE_4

83.8%

Information not available

Calculating of the sampling errors was done using the SPSS software. It uses the Taylor expansion method to estimate sampling errors of the estimators based on complex sample designs.

Sample design is two stage stratified. Procedure in the SPSS estimates variance from the variation among PSUs and variance depends only on the first stage of the sampling design.

Ussing the Analyze Complex Samples in SPSS were calculated: Standard error of the estimate, Confidence interval, Coefficient of variation.

References: SPSS Complex Samples, Särndal C.-E., B. Swensson, J. Wertman (2003), Model Assisted Survey Sampling, Springer Verlag, etc.

Estimation method – basic formulas:

V(Y) = ∑ n_h (1-f_h) / (n_h-1) ∑ (e_hi. - e_h..)²

e_hi.  = (∑ w_hij (y_hij – Y)) / w_...

e_h.. = (∑e_hi.) / n_h

 StdErr(Y) = √ (V(Y))

with

n_h : number of PSUs in stratum h

f_h: sampling rate for stratum h

w_hij: sampling weight for observation j in cluster i of stratum h

y_hij: observed values

Precision estimates for the question "Individuals having ordered goods or services for private use over the internet in the last 12 months" (individuals who ticked 'Within the last 3 months' or 'Between 3 months and a year ago' in question D1 of the 2022 model questionnaire):

Number of respondents (absolute value for ‘Yes’ answers):   1 157

Estimated proportion (in %):   45.6

Standard error (in percentage points):  2.3

Details of the breakdowns are available in the Annex below. 

See more details on non-sampling error below.

Information not available

The sampling frame is based on the data from the Population Census conducted in 2011, which includes households living on the national territory.

Sampling frame is not updated and there are the cases that dwelling or household does not exists at the selected address, or it is used for work,  or there is not target person in household etc.

Not requested in the ICT survey.

1)       Measurement errors:

Errors are eliminated with good interviewer training and their deep understanding of the questionnaire, aiming at spotting the errors during the interview and correct them, or if there is any error seen during the checking  to call the household again and correctly collect that data that is needed.

2)       Questionnaire design and testing:

Questionnaire is designed by Eurostat and adopted fully, there is no differences in design. Testing of the questionnaire is done before starting the survey. It gives insight on the complicated formulations of possible misunderstandings of some questions in order to reformulate the wording in national language.

3)       Interviewer training:

Training of interviewers is done in couple of phases which cover methodological training and understanding of all concepts that will be among possible answers. Next phase is going through questionnaire with explaining of every question and all answers. Last phase is technical training in the programme they will work on.

4)       Proxy interview rates: Not applicable.

Information about non-respondents:  No information available

The unit response rate is the ratio of the number of in-scope respondents (= the number of achieved interviews or the net sample size to the number of eligible elements selected from the sampling frame).

Unit non-response rate for

• Households:  76.92
• Individuals (aged 16-74):   76.92

 Comments, if any:

1)       Methods used for dealing with unit non-response:  Phone call, scheduling of phone call in time that is suitable for household

2)       Methods used for minimizing unit non-response:  No imputations are done

3)       Substitution permitted:  0

4)       Substitution rate (in %):  Information not available

Items with low response rates (observed rates in %): No low item non-response

Information not available

Not requested for ICT Survey

Data are disseminated at national level on 21/10/2022. Release date was done accordingly to to the release calendar.

0 days

0 days

No information available

Not relevant

Possible limitations in the use of data for comparisons over time:  Not relevant

The length of comparable time series depends on the module and variable considered within each of the modules of the survey.

Not applicable

Not applicable

Not applicable

All statistics are coherent within the dataset

MANDATORY questions in the Eurostat model questionnaire 2022:

The table in the Annexes lists the questions that do not reflect the coverage of subjects and characteristics of Annex 2 of the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/1898 of the 20 July 2021. 

Adoption of OPTIONAL questions and items in the Eurostat model questionnaire 2022:

The table in the Annexes lists the optional questions from the annual Eurostat model questionnaire 2022 included in the national questionnaire and their coverage for age groups beyond the standard scope. 

Additional questions introduced in the national questionnaire: 

1. Do you have access to the folowing devices in your home:

• PC
• Laptop
• Tablet
• TV
• Radio
• Mobile phone

2. When did you last use computer:

• In the last 3 months
• Between 3 months and one year
• More than a year ago
• Never

3. How often did you use computer in the last 3 months:

• Every day or almost every day
• At least once a week
• At least once a month
• Never

Effects of deviations from the routing used in the Eurostat model questionnaire: All statistics are coherent within the dataset

No information available

No information available

Not relevant

The source of the raw data is described with more details in the paragraphs below.

Short description: The sampling frame is based on the data from the Population Census conducted in 2011. which includes household living on the national territory.

Type of source: The sample is not drawn from another survey sample

Survey vehicle: Stand-alone survey

Survey participation: Voluntary

Shortcomings: There is not known shortcomings

The sampling design is a probability design.

The sample is based on two-stage stratified random sampling design. Primary sampling units are enumeration districts and second stage units are households.

Enumeration areas, as primary sampling units, are stratified by the type of settlement (urban and other) and by territory at the NUTS 3 level (25 areas). Census enumeration areas are primary sampling units. From the Census 1981, there were applicable legal criteria by which the settlements were categorized as "urban" and "other". Urban settlements are considered those settlements which are declared based on rules or decisions of competent authorities in the Republic of Serbia, that is "Decision of the Municipal Assembly". Urban area is the sum of urban settlements. The rural area is the sum of the settlements categorized as "other."

Systematic sampling with probabilities proportional-to-size with stratification effect

Number of individuals interviewed in the household: One.

Annual

1) Methods used to gather data: CATI

2) Short description of the survey method: Telephone interview

3) Variables completed from an external source: No variables have been completed from an external source.

Data quality checks are done by manual revision of questionnaires and procedures of logical control. Collected data are first checked and verified during the process of data entering. After that quality checking is carried out by using a set of strict manual and electronic logical and calculation controls. Reports that fail to meet the quality standards are subject to verification and are corrected as required.

Obtained results from the actual reporting period are compared with the previous and the corresponding reporting period of the previous year. If inconsistencies are detected the data must be verified at micro level again by using raw data of the questionnaire and possibly changed.

For logical control and corrections of errors is used Integrated Survey Tool (IST). IST is a software package that includes the process of data entry, logical control and production of output tables.

SORS does not perform imputations

For the target indicator "Individuals having ordered goods or services for private use over the internet in the last 12 months" (individuals who ticked 'Within the last 3 months' or 'Between 3 months and a year ago' in question D1 of the 2022 model questionnaire):

Imputation rate (% of observations): 0%

Imputation rate (share of estimate): 0%

Methods used to impute item non-response: None

Grossing up procedures have been applied to: Households and individuals 

Description of the weighting procedures: 

The household weight was calculated as a product of initial weight as result of sampling design (product of inclusion probabilities from each stage) and correction factor for non-response. Then the weights were adjusted to the estimated number of the households in 2022. The individual weight was calculated from household weight by adjustment to the population values, obtained according to the demographic estimates based on the vital statistics for 2021. Post-stratification was performed according to the gender, ten-year age groups and education (three groups) for the level of Serbia.

Not relevant

Not relevant