Eurobarometer 56.1: Social Exclusion and Modernization of Pension Systems, September-October 2001 (ICPSR 3475)

Version Date: Oct 18, 2006

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Principal Investigator(s):
Thomas Christensen, European Commission. Directorate-General Press and Communication. Opinion Polls Sector

Series:

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03475.v3

Version V3

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Summary

This round of Eurobarometer surveys diverged from standard questions instead it focused on the social exclusion and modernization of pension systems in European Union countries. Respondents were asked why people were socially excluded, what the role of government should be in reducing the risk of poverty and social exclusion, how satisfied they were with their lives, whether there were people in their neighborhoods who lived in poverty, and what it meant to live properly. They were also asked whether they had financial problems, and if so, for how long and what had caused them. A number of questions focused on problems related to work. Respondents were asked whether they had been unemployed in the last five years and if so for how long. Those employed or self-employed were asked questions concerning job satisfaction, the type of organization for which they worked, the number of hours worked, their job title, number of people employed at their workplace, how long they had been continuously employed, and what they took into consideration when choosing a job. They were also asked whether their job was interesting and secure, whether they had to work hard and under pressure, whether their employers paid for training or education, whether they had friends at work, and whether they had influence over the decision-making processes at their workplace and in deciding how to do their tasks. They also compared different aspects of their current job with what they had been doing five years ago, described relations between management and employees, and commented on how their work affected their health and their lives after work. Another major focus of the surveys was the pension system. Those who had already retired were asked at what age they had retired, what the main source of their retirement income was, whether their current financial situation was better than before retirement and what it would look like in five to ten years, and whether the state pension allowed them to get by easily. Non-pensioners supplied information about when they intended to retire, what their main source of income would be after retirement, what percentage of their current household's total income after tax they considered sufficient in retirement, and how they were saving for their retirement. Additionally, respondents were asked what a good pension system should look like, how the pension should be provided, what level of minimum guaranteed income should be provided for elderly people, whether older workers should be forced to retire at a fixed age, whether men and women should be treated equally in terms of the retirement system, and how retirement problems caused by an aging society should be resolved. Demographic and other background information collected includes respondent's age, gender, nationality, marital status, left-right political self-placement, occupation, age at completion of education, trade union membership, household income, type and size of locality, and region of residence.

Citation

Christensen, Thomas. Eurobarometer 56.1: Social Exclusion and Modernization of Pension Systems, September-October 2001. [distributor], 2006-10-18. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03475.v3

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Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

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Time Period(s)

2001-09-17 -- 2001-10-26

Date of Collection

2001-09-17 -- 2001-10-26

Data Collection Notes

    1. Additional processing for this collection was performed at the Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung (ZA) in Cologne, Germany.
    2. The codebook and setup files for this collection contain characters with diacritical marks used in many European languages.
    3. Although the setup files contain references to Norway, Norway was not a participant in this wave of Eurobarometer surveys and this collection contains no data for Norway.
    4. Q3 (MINIMUM INCOME): data are not available.
    5. Q16/V98-V100: Some respondents, who indicated to have been unemployed in the last 5 years (coded 1 = YES in V98), did not answer the follow up question (how many TIMES being unemployed) and were coded NEVER in the summarized variable. A total of 68 cases have been recoded to NA (code 0) in V99 and V100.
    6. Q18/V102-V114 (PERSONAL SITUATION): Answer category "Not applicable" is not always meaningful.
    7. Q29/V167-V168 (OCCUPATION - WORKING HOURS): Please notice implausible out-of-range values of 300 and more indicated for Finland (plus 1 case in France). The irregular Finnish cases have been recoded as follows, using the first two digits, which might be considered regular entries, adding 900: 300->930, 320->932, 345->934 350->935, 360->936, 370->937, 380->938, 390->939, 400->940, 420->942, 450->945 in V167. In the summarized variable V168 all irregular Finnish cases have been coded to 95. The single French out-of-range case (code 354) has been recoded to NA (Code 0) in V167 and V168.
    8. Q30b/V170-V171 (WORKING HOURS PREFERENCE): Due to implausible out-of-range values coding "112" up to "499" as weekly working hours preference, a total of 5 cases have been coded to NA (code 0) in V170 and V171.
    9. Q41/V238-V249 (WORKING CONDITION): Answer category "Not applicable" is not always meaningful.
    10. Q48/V304-V305 (RETIREMENT - AGE INTENDED): Implausible low values (three cases coded 3 and 9) have been recoded to NA (code 0).
    11. Q48/V304-V305 and Q49/V306-V307 (RETIREMENT - AGE): Please notice cases indicating implausible high and low ages, compared to the actual AGE of the respondent as coded in D11/V432.
    12. D8/V429-V430: For one respondent the indicated AGE "WHEN STOPPED FULL-TIME EDUCATION" was too high for the ACTUAL AGE (D11/V430). The case was recoded to NA (code 0) in V429 and V430. Sixty-two MISSING CASES that are coded "2" (STUDENT) in D15A/V145 have been recoded to "98" in V429 and "10" in V430 (STILL STUDYING).
    13. D29/V458 (INCOME HH QUARTILES): Please notice that the income quartiles are produced for comparison purposes and are retained as provided by the principal investigator. They are based on categorized income question as coded in the country specific variables V440 to V456.
    14. P7_GB/V489, V502: Please notice erroneous coding for basic British regions in P7 and accordingly in all derived variables. At least GREATER LONDON (16) and KENT (18) seemed to be exchanged and therefore have been corrected in the present dataset edition. This variable should only be used with caution.
    15. D19A/B: Notice that starting with Eurobarometer 55.1 question D19 has been modified. D19A (HH MAINLY LOOKING AFTER HOME) is not available anymore, and for D19B (HH MAINLY INCOME [HEAD OF HH]) the answer category "both equally" has been added.
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Sample

Multistage national probability samples.

Universe

Citizens of the EU aged 15 and over residing in the 15 EU member countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

Data Source

face-to-face interview

Data Type(s)

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Original Release Date

2002-12-09

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:
  • Christensen, Thomas. EUROBAROMETER 56.1: SOCIAL EXCLUSION AND MODERNIZATION OF PENSION SYSTEMS, SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2001. ICPSR03475-v3. Conducted by European Opinion Research Group, Brussels. Cologne, Germany: Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung [producer], 2006. Cologne, Germany: Zentralarchiv fur Empirische Sozialforschung/Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributors], 2006-10-18. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03475.v3

2006-10-18 The data have been further processed by the ZA, the SPSS setup file and the codebook have been updated, SAS and Stata setup files, an SPSS portable file, an SAS transport file, and a Stata system file have been added.

2004-03-03 All embargos have been lifted and previously embargoed data are now available.

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Notes