Cultural and Interviewer Effects on Interview Privacy: Individualism and National Wealth

Privacy (or the lack of it) is an important feature of the interview. Researchers rely on interviewers to ensure a private setting. In reality, interviewers are guests in respondents’ homes and might find it difficult to achieve privacy. Thus, a substantial proportion of interviews are conducted in the presence of a third party. We investigate whether there are cultural and interviewer variations in interview privacy and whether respondent characteristics associated with interview privacy vary by culture. We analyzed data from 14 countries. The results highlight the direct and indirect role the country-level characteristics (level of individualism and wealth) play in explaining cultural differences in rates of interview privacy and the significant between-interviewer variation in interview privacy