Who can use this feature?

Survey creators, Account administrators, Surveys full permissions, Survey admins

Available on:

All Culture Amp subscriptions that include Engagement or Effectiveness (Manager and Team Effectiveness surveys).

Self-reporting demographics gather information from employees that may not be available in your HRIS, such as commute method, preferred work hours, or disability status. Unlike account-level demographics pulled from your employee data file, self-report demographics are answered directly by participants during the survey. This allows you to collect data for analysis without requiring it to be tracked in your HR system.

When to Use Self-Reporting Demographics

Use self-report demographic questions when you need to filter or analyze survey results by data that is:

Not tracked in your HRIS
Too sensitive or personal to store in your employee data system
Specific to the survey context (for example, which training session someone attended)
Subject to change or self-identification (for example, caregiver status, neurodiversity)

Common examples include:

Commute method or distance
Caregiving responsibilities
Disability or accessibility needs
Tenure with previous employer
Training cohort or program participation
Work location preference (remote, hybrid, office)

Unattributed Surveys

Self-report demographics are especially important for unattributed surveys, where you need participants to manually select standard demographics like department or location since their responses cannot be tied to their employee record.

How to Add Self-Reporting Demographics

Self-report demographics are added using demographic sections and demographic questions in the survey designer.

Navigate to Survey configuration > Questions.
Click Add.
Select New demographic section.
Add demographic questions to the section using New demographic question from the section menu.

For detailed step-by-step instructions, see Design and Configure Survey Questions: Add a demographic section.

Important Behaviors

Self-report demographics appear as filters, not as questions in reporting
When participants answer self-report demographic questions, their responses are not shown on the Questions tab in your survey report. Instead, these questions are automatically converted into demographic filters that work exactly like account-level demographics (such as manager, location, or department). You can use these filters to split and analyze results for any demographic groups that meet your reporting group minimum.
Demographic sections display separately from standard sections
Demographic sections appear in a dedicated area of the survey, separate from your standard question sections. By default, they appear at the end of the survey, but you can move them to the beginning by selecting Move to the Top from the demographic section menu.
Only single-select questions are supported
Self-report demographic questions must use the Demographic select question type, which allows participants to choose one option from a list. Multi-select, rating scale, and free text question types are not supported for demographic questions.
Demographic labels control reporting filter names
The Demographic label you enter for each demographic question becomes the filter name in reports. This label can only be edited in the question designer, not from the demographics page or account demographics settings. Choose clear, concise labels that will make sense to report viewers. You can add a demographic label at any stage of the survey process (draft, live or closed).
Define options that meet your reporting group minimum
When creating response options for self-report demographics, remember that each option is subject to your reporting group minimum (typically five participants). Design your options so that at least five participants are likely to select each one. If an option has fewer than the minimum, that demographic group will not appear as a filter in reports.
Self-report demographics cannot filter for "no response"
Unlike account-level demographics, you cannot filter reports to show participants who did not answer a self-report demographic question. If a participant skips a demographic question, they are treated as having skipped a question, not as belonging to a "Not specified" group. Only account-level demographics support filtering by "Not specified."

Where to Place Self-Reporting Demographics in Your Survey

You can place demographic sections at the beginning or end of your survey. Each placement has different implications for response objectivity.

We recommend placing demographics at the end of the survey

Asking demographic questions at the end prevents priming, where participants are reminded of their identity before answering substantive questions. This is especially important for inclusion, belonging, and equity-focused surveys. When participants are asked about their race, gender, or other identity characteristics first, those aspects of identity become more salient and can influence how they answer questions about voice, psychological safety, or belonging.

Research on stereotype threat shows that reminding people of their demographic identity before a task can affect their performance and perception. Placing demographics at the end maintains objectivity.

Place demographics at the beginning only when context is required

There are situations where demographics should come first:

Training feedback surveys, where participants need to identify which training they attended before answering questions about it.
Event-specific surveys, where participants select which event they attended to ensure they are answering the correct questions.
Surveys with answer-based display rules that depend on demographic responses, where early questions determine which later questions are shown.

Using Self-Report Demographics with Display Rules

You can use self-report demographic responses to control which questions are shown to participants using demographic display rules. For example, you might ask all participants to select their work location, then show location-specific questions only to participants who selected "Remote."

For more information on setting up display rules, see Use display rules in a survey.

Self-Reporting Demographics vs. Account-Level Demographics

It is important to understand the distinction between self-report demographics and account-level demographics:

Feature	Self-Report Demographics	Account-Level Demographics
Source	Answered by participants during the survey	Pulled from your employee data file in Culture Amp
Appear in reporting as	Filters (not on Questions tab)	Filters (not on Questions tab)
Can filter for "Not specified"	No	Yes
Visible on Demographics page	Yes (read-only)	Yes (editable at account level)
Use Case	Data not in HRIS or specific to survey context	Standard organizational demographics