Version Date: Mar 14, 2016 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Tom W. Smith, National Opinion Research Center;
Michael Hout, National Opinion Research Center;
Peter V. Marsden, National Opinion Research Center
Series:
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36319.v2
Version V2
Since 1972, the General Social Survey (GSS) has been monitoring societal change and studying the growing complexity of American society. The GSS aims to gather data on contemporary American society in order to monitor and explain trends and constants in attitudes, behaviors, and attributes; to examine the structure and functioning of society in general as well as the role played by relevant subgroups; to compare the United States to other societies in order to place American society in comparative perspective and develop cross-national models of human society; and to make high-quality data easily accessible to scholars, students, policy makers, and others, with minimal cost and waiting. GSS questions include such items as national spending priorities, marijuana use, crime and punishment, race relations, quality of life, and confidence in institutions. Since 1988, the GSS has also collected data on sexual behavior including number of sex partners, frequency of intercourse, extramarital relationships, and sex with prostitutes. The 2014 GSS has modules on quality of working life, shared capitalism, wealth, work and family balance, social identity, social isolation, and civic participation. In 1985 the GSS co-founded the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). The ISSP has conducted an annual cross-national survey each year since then and has involved 58 countries and interviewed over one million respondents. The ISSP asks an identical battery of questions in all countries; the U.S. version of these questions is incorporated into the GSS. The 2014 ISSP topics are National Identity and Citizenship. Demographic variables include age, gender, race, ethnicity, education, marital status, religion, employment status, income, household structure, and whether respondents were born in the United States.
Export Citation:
census region
For sampling information, please see Appendix A of the ICPSR Codebook.
All noninstitutionalized, English and Spanish speaking persons 18 years of age or older, living in the United States.
2016-02-05
2016-03-14 The collection documentation and online data analysis (SDA) have been updated with question text.
2016-02-05 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:
Due to the number of weights and the various uses for them, users should refer to Appendix A of the ICPSR Codebook.
HideThese data are freely available to data users at ICPSR member institutions. The curation and dissemination of this study are provided by the institutional members of ICPSR. How do I access ICPSR data if I am not at a member institution?
This study is provided by ICPSR. ICPSR provides leadership and training in data access, curation, and methods of analysis for a diverse and expanding social science research community.