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Tuesday 18th July, 14:00 - 15:30 Room: N 101


Overview of open access European survey data 3

Chair Dr Annette Scherpenzeel (SHARE – Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe )
Coordinator 1Ms Sabine Friedel (Munich Center for the Economics of Aging, Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy)

Session Details

In recent years, many large sets of survey data have been made available to the scientific community. Large national and European surveys, such as ESS, SHARE, SOEP, Understanding Society, etc., disseminate their data to registered users. For researchers it can be difficult to get a good overview of what is offered and to find the specific variables and samples of their interest.

This session aims to give researchers more insight into the variety of variables available in large survey datasets. For that purpose, we invite survey practitioners to present their data sets, longitudinal as well as cross-sectional, to potential users. Presentations should address the following survey characteristics: Research field, target population and sample, survey design, data access regulations, available survey variables and paradata, linked administrative data (if applicable), and some examples of data use. Moreover, we especially welcome overviews including information which can be used for methodological analysis, such as key stroke data, auxiliary information, interviewer characteristics and observations, response behavior, experimental designs, etc.

Paper Details

1. Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study
Dr Jonathan Burton (ISER, University of Essex)

Understanding Society is the UK Household Longitudinal Study; a large, annual survey of the same individuals. The study includes a large ethnic minority boost, the former British Household Panel Survey sample, and an Innovation Panel - to facilitate methodological experiments.

The data from the survey is available from the UK Data Archive, free for researchers. This presentation gives potential users information about the study - including the sample design, fieldwork design and response rates. The priority, though, is on the data which are available, including data access regulations, available survey variables and paradata, linked administrative data. In addition, a focus will be on information which can be used for methodological analysis, such as key stroke data, auxiliary information, interviewer characteristics and observations, and experimental designs


2. The Swiss Household Panel
Dr Marieke Voorpostel (FORS)
Dr Oliver Lipps (FORS)
Dr Ursina Kuhn (FORS)

Collecting data on households and individuals since 1999, the Swiss Household Panel (SHP) is an ongoing, unique, large-scale, nationally representative, longitudinal study in Switzerland (12,119 persons in 7,383 households interviewed in 2014). The data of the SHP are available to researchers free of charge and have been at the basis of a large number of publications in various disciplines in the social sciences, including economics, sociology, political science, methodology, and psychology. The SHP is predominantly administered by telephone, but alternative modes of interview are offered as well. Moreover, the SHP has collected life histories for two of its three samples. Additional information for methodological research includes call data, information on interviewers (socio-demographic characteristics, working conditions, and attitudes), and interviewer evaluations on interview atmosphere and future participation of respondents. Random assignment of interviewers to respondents offers a unique experimental design for analyzing interviewer effects. The SHP is part of the Cross-National Equivalent File, in which data from several household panels are post-harmonized. SHP data have also been matched to the Swiss National Cohort using probabilistic linkage techniques. Upon request, the SHP data is matched to small area statistics, allowing for contextual research.


3. The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP): Overview and new developments
Dr Jan Goebel (DIW Berlin / SOEP)

The Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) is a representative longitudinal study of private households in Germany. More than 15,000 households are surveyed each year. The data provide information on all household members. The Panel was started in 1984. Some of the many topics include household composition, occupational biographies, employment, earnings, health and satisfaction indicators.
The talk will give a summary about the target population and samples, survey design, data access regulations, available survey variables and paradata. However the main focus will be on the new developments around the SOEPcore Sample as well as an overview about the possibilities to use the SOEP Innovations sample for own research projects.
The new developments presented include the possibilitiy to link geo-coordinated data with survey information, the new migrant and refugee samples and how linked administrativ data from the IAB can be accessed.
External researchers are invited to submit proposals for the SOEP Innovation Sample (SOEP-IS). This unique innovation sample offers great potential as a source of household micro-data, particularly for researchers seeking information that is not available in SOEP-Core - for example, specific information on households or on people’s opinions. SOEP-IS can accommodate not only short-term experiments but also longer-term survey modules that are not suitable for SOEP-Core, whether because the survey instruments are still relatively new or because of the specific issues dealt with in the research


4. Second European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER-2)
Mr Xabier Irastorza (European Agency for Safety and Health at Work)

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) completed its second European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER-2) in 2014, interviewing 49,320 establishments.

Data have been available for many years on work-related accidents and ill-health through surveys directed at workers and through reporting systems. However, little is known about the way in which occupational safety and health (OSH) risks are managed in practice, particularly those that are ‘new and emerging’, such as work-related stress, violence and harassment. This is the information gap that ESENER is aiming to fill.

The survey explores in detail four OSH areas:
1. The general approach in the establishment to managing OSH.
2. How the ‘emerging’ area of psychosocial risks is addressed.
3. The main drivers and barriers to the management of OSH.
4. How worker participation in OSH management is implemented in practice.

ESENER-2 builds up on the experience and findings of ESENER-1 (2009) as a result of which some changes were implemented:

• Target population: agriculture, forestry and fishing sector were covered and the smallest establishment size was employing five workers rather than ten –as was the case in ESENER-1.
• Respondent: a single respondent interviewed in each establishment: “the person who knows best about health and safety in this establishment”. There was a control question on the actual function/role of the respondent in order to enable an analysis of the findings by type of respondent.

ESENER-2 covered establishments with five or more employees from all sectors of activity — except for private households (NACE T) and extraterritorial organisations (NACE U) — across 36 European countries: the 28 European Union Member States (EU- 28) as well as Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Iceland, Montenegro, Norway, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey. By country, the samples ranged from about 450 in Malta to 4,250 in the United Kingdom.

Data were collected through computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI), by native interviewers in each of the countries. All in all, there were 47 national versions of the questionnaire.

Both the statistical unit and the unit of enquiry for the survey were establishments/local units rather than companies/enterprises. In the case of multisite organisations, it implied that both headquarters and subsidiaries were eligible for the survey and that the answers to the questionnaire were to be related to the selected unit only and not to the entire organisation. Samples were drawn according to a disproportional sample design which was later redressed by weighting.

The datasets for both waves of the survey are available at the UKDA site.

There has been significant use of the data by EU-OSHA’s stakeholders, mostly policy makers, both at national and European level. EU-OSHA has completed a number of in-depth secondary analyses -of both ESENER waves- on a variety of topics, as well as using it for other projects.

Fieldwork for ESENER-3 is planned to take place in 2019.