Eurobarometer 76.2 September-November 2011 (Special Eurobarometer 378)

Summary

Quite useful in understanding people’s attitudes towards old-age and the elderly. The database also covers attitudes towards longer working lives, retirement age, and age discrimination. Since the database covers 33 countries in Europe, it allows for an analysis of attitudes, not only in the EU-27, but in Europe as a whole; cross-country comparison is also possible. However, as the survey is occasional, it does not allow studying changes over time.

Type of data

Data Source
Survey

Type of Study
Crosssection occasional

Data gathering method
Face-to-face

Access to data

Conditions of access
Access provided through DBK (Datenbestandskatalog) and ZACAT (social science data portal provided by GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences), both of which provide free access to complete ISSP data and documentation materials online; users must register online to obtain access and the data is only available for scientific analysis carried out in academic research and teaching. Complete Eurobarometer collections on DVD-R can be ordered online subject to handling charges of 25 € per DVD-R product. The most recent data is labelled “pre-release”, which means the data is restricted because it has not been fully consolidated and checked (data from the fall of 2010 to 2012).

Type of available data (e.g. anonymised microdata, aggregated tables, etc.)
Questionnaires, tables, metadata, individual variable data, codebooks

Formats available
SPSS, STATA

Coverage

Coverage Years of collection, reference years, and sample sizes
Data collected from September 24th to November 8th, 2011 Sample size was 31,280 (approximately 1,000 per country, except the United Kingdom with separate samples for Great Britain (1,000) and Northern Ireland (300), Germany with separate samples for the Eastern (500) and the Western part (1,000), and Luxembourg and Cyprus (Republic) with 500 interviews each)

First year of collection
The first Special Eurobarometer survey was conducted in 1970, but this particular survey was first carried out in 2011.

Stratification if applicable
Population and urbanisation

Base used for sampling

Geographical coverage and breakdowns
All 27 EU Member states participated in addition to Croatia, Iceland, Macedonia, Norway and Turkey Used NUTS II to divide the regional units EU 15 (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom) NMS 12 (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Republic of Cyprus, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia

Age range
15+

Statistical representativeness
Population representative

Coverage of main and cross-cutting topics
The data allows for a detailed study on public attitudes towards old-age and somewhat less detailed studies on social and civic engagement and intergenerational relations. The survey includes questions as to support for and from elderly within the family.

Linkage

Standardisation
N/A

Possibility of linkage among databases
N/A

Data quality

Entry errors if applicable
Data is not quite available online and is still being checked for completeness and any errors.

Breaks
The TNS Opinion and Social Network was responsible for carrying out the survey and partner institutes in each of the countries were assigned the task of completing the fieldwork in their respective countries.

Consistency of terminology or coding used during collection
N/A

Governance

Contact information
Dr. Meinhard Moschner, Eurobarometer Data Service
GESIS - Leibniz Institut für Sozialwissenschaften
Unter Sachsenhausen 6-8
50667 Köln Germany Phone: +49 (0221) 47694-460
Email: meinhard.moschner(at)gesis.org
Url: http://www.gesis.org/en/eurobarometer/home/

Timeliness, transparency
Data collected between September 24th and November 8th, 2011, and was released in January 2012.