European Communities Study, 1973 (ICPSR 7330)

Version Date: May 1, 2015

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Principal Investigator(s):
Ronald Inglehart, University of Michigan. Center for Political Studies; Jacques-Rene Rabier, European Commission

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07330.v2

Version V2

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Summary

A precursor to the Eurobarometer studies, this survey queried respondents on some of what would become standard Eurobarometer measures, such as how satisfied they were with their present lives, whether they attempted to persuade others close to them to share their views on subjects they held strong opinions about, whether they discussed political matters, what their country's goals should be for the next ten years, and how they viewed the need for societal change. Additional questions focused on the respondents' knowledge of and opinions on the European Community (EC), including how well-informed they felt about the EC, what sources of information about the EC they used, whether their country had benefited from being an EC member, and the extent of their personal interest in EC matters. Another major focus of the surveys was on the respondents' satisfaction with various aspects of life and society, including satisfaction with their work, housing, leisure time, welfare programs, and life in general. Respondents' political attitudes were also assessed, e.g., political party preference, political participation, and which goals they felt were important for their country. Another series of questions focused on the European Community. Respondents were asked to name the countries that had recently joined the Common Market. They were also asked to rate the information they received from the news media along several dimensions. Other questions covered respondents' attitudes toward their countries' EC membership, e.g., whether it was good or bad and why, whether their own country or the European Community could better handle certain problems, and whether it was desirable to work toward a United Europe. Respondents were also asked which party they supported and to place themselves on a left-right ideological scale. Demographic information on religion, age, occupation, sex, marital status, education, size of community, income, and number of persons in household was also gathered. In addition to the survey itself, the ICPSR version of the study contains three constructed indices. Two of these indices place respondents along a materialist/postmaterialist values continuum and the other categorizes respondents' political ideology according to their party preferences. This study contains information gathered from samples of respondents aged 15 or older interviewed in each of the nine nations of the newly expanded European Community in September-October 1973. The same questionnaire was administered to a total of 13,484 respondents: 1,957 from Germany, 1,933 from Great Britain, 1,199 from Denmark, 1,909 from Italy, 2,227 from France, 1,266 from Belgium, 330 from Luxembourg, 1,199 from Ireland, and 1,464 from the Netherlands.

Citation

Inglehart, Ronald, and Rabier, Jacques-Rene. European Communities Study, 1973. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2015-05-01. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07330.v2

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Funding

European Commission (NSF: SES 8208333), National Science Foundation

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

country

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

1973-09 -- 1973-10

Date of Collection

1973-09 -- 1973-10

Data Collection Notes

  1. The British questionnaire was used in constructing the codebook.

  2. In the French sample, the rural population was underrepresented. In order to produce a sample more representative of the total French population, French rural cases have been duplicated (each appears twice) in this dataset. Their original identification numbers have been retained.

  3. Access to GESIS data and documentation, including the GESIS DOI, for this study can be found through the GESIS Data Catalogue. Additional information on the Eurobarometer Survey Series and the Eurobarometer data can be found at the GESIS Eurobarometer Web site and ZACAT, respectively.

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Sample

The sampling designs were either multistage national probability samples (in Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands) or national stratified quota samples (in France, Germany, Great Britain [excluding Northern Ireland], Italy, Ireland, and Luxembourg).

Time Method

Cross-sectional

Universe

Citizens of the EC aged 15 and over residing in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

Unit(s) of Observation

individual

Data Source

personal interviews

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

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Original Release Date

1984-06-27

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:
  • Inglehart, Ronald, and Jacques-Rene Rabier. European Communities Study, 1973. ICPSR07330-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2015-05-01. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR07330.v2

2015-05-01 The SPSS setup files were updated to conform to current standards. SAS and Stata setup files, as well as SPSS and Stata system files, a SAS transport (CPORT) file, a R data file, a tab-delimited data file, and a PDF codebook have been added to the collection.

1984-06-27 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Performed consistency checks.
  • Standardized missing values.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
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Weight

The data are not weighted, however, there is one weight variable, V5 (DUTCH WEIGHT VARIABLE), that users may wish to use during analysis.

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Notes