the european social survey: the potential for research and teaching. royal statistical society,...

The European Social Survey: the potential for research and teaching. Royal Statistical Society, London, 22 October 2003

Contextual and

event data

Ineke Stoopand

Jurjen Iedema


European Social Survey

• Cross-national• Longitudinal• Changing values and opinions in a changing

Europe

• Collect information on national socio-demographics and socio-economics

• Collect information on national systems– Electoral, education, health care, social security

• Collect information on events– Influence fieldwork (extreme weather, privacy scandals,

war)– Influence opinions


Contextual data• Difficult to collect• Difficult to update

• Subset of socio-demographics at NSD• List of websites with contextual data

– Coverage– Accessibility (costs, ease of use)– Updates– Reliability


Country data websites• General

– EUROSTAT– OECD – UN/ECE– Country reports

• Regional– EUROCITIES– Urban audit: assessing the quality of life of Europe’s cities

• Politics– Comparative Study of Electoral Systems– Election Resources on the Internet: Europe

• Education– UNESCO – International Bureau of Education– Eurybase: the information database on education systems


Existing websites with country data• Health

– European observatory on health care systems– WHO

• Social and economic issues– ILO– Worldbank– IMF– European industrial relations observatory – European Observatory on the social situation, demography and family – MISSOC, MISSCEEC: Information system on Social Protection in Europe

• Culture– Compendium: Cultural Policies in Europe – UNESCO statistics

• Education– UNESCO – International Bureau of Education– Eurybase: the information database on education systems


Collect events

• International press agencies?– National impact

• National press agencies?– Language/impact

• National ESS coordinators – Major events– Headlines several days– Related to ESS questionnaire– Guidelines for reporting, to minimize individual

differences


Event reporting

• During fieldwork monthly reports on

– Major national events that attract wide and long-lasting attention nationally and even in other countries

– Major national events that make front page news for several subsequent days and give rise to widespread public discussion and/or to a substantive increase in media use

– Elections, major issues under discussion, possible changes in the political landscape.


Guidelines: format

• Name, keywords• Short description• Assessment of scope, impact (how much attention did it get

in the press, how many persons are involved)• Names of relevant newspapers, dates of front page news,

headlines• If possible, when did it start and when did it end? • Additional information (how could this affect the fieldwork?) • Assign the event to one or more categories

International conflicts/Elections, plebiscite/Resignation, appointment, dismissal of politically significant person/Fall of cabinet, organization, reshuffle of new govern-ment/Organization of opposition party/ Significant change of laws/Strikes, demon-strations, riots/Events involving ethnic minorities, asylum seekers/Events concerning the national economy, labour market/Political, financial, economic scandal/National events (royal weddings, sports championships)/ Disasters (crashing financial markets, explosions, outbreaks foot and mouth/mad cow disease, extreme weather conditions)


Problems in collecting

• Monthly reporting: ‘long’ events, recurrent events• What is an event: Iraq crisis?

– Sub-events– National ‘Iraq’-events

• German elections• Stepping down Labour cabinet members in UK• Aznar, Bush, Blair meeting• Dutch government formation• Polish batallion• Protests and rallies

• Multiple categories• What if events happen in between fieldwork

periods?• Quality newspapers or gutter press (cross-national

differences)• Large individual differences in reporting


Use event data

• Avoid fishing expedition in explaining survey results:– Recorded before survey data available: this is what

NCs considered important at the time– Complete European picture: get back and collect

information in every country that at least some countries considered important in selecting events

• Happy countries are all alike; every unhappy country is unhappy in its own way– Are countries with few events similarly quiet or are

there individual differences in event reporting?


Analyzing events

• Keywords provided by reporters• Categories

– According to guidelines– Assign afterwards (specific instead of

generic: David Kelly – political scandal)

• Word count


Word count October 2002D H IS Fl Nl Pl AU DK ES P SL UK IT NO CH FI CZ SW

government 11 8 5 14 7 8 4 2 6 5 5 4 3 1 2 85election 6 11 1 2 3 9 8 1 4 5 3 9 62iraq 13 9 8 2 3 2 1 38strike 3 12 1 2 6 2 26labour 4 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 3 1 3 1 24economy 3 2 1 5 2 3 2 2 1 2 23scandal 2 5 6 2 5 20chechnya 1 2 3 5 5 16immigration-minorities 6 3 2 1 1 13enlargement&eu-accession 3 2 5 2 12resignation 2 1 1 2 4 1 11disaster 2 1 1 1 2 2 9bali 1 1 1 2 2 7health 3 1 3 7change of laws 3 1 1 5demonstration 1 1 3 5batasuna 4 4haider 3 3pension 1 2 3crime 1 1total 44 33 33 31 28 28 22 21 19 18 17 17 15 14 12 11 9 2 374


Events October 2002

UKspain

iraq

pension

labour

israel

switzerland

demonstration

strikeitalycrime

resignation

flandersswedengermanygovernmentportugal

netherlands

economynorway disaster

scandal

finland

polandhealth

change of lawsslovenia

austriaelection

immigrationhungary

czech republicdenmark

enlargement, accession-2,5

0

-4 0


Attitudes and events• Did attitudes change over time?

– Different fieldwork period participants– Differences early and late respondents

• Is there a direct relationship between events and answers to the questionnaire? ESS-question fairly general


Attention politics/share media use

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

45%

50%

55%

60%

65%

sep 2 oct 2 nov 2 nov/dec 1 dec/jan 1 jan 5 feb 4 mar 4Switzerland Czech Republic Spain Finland United Kingdom Greece Hungary

Ireland Israel Netherlands Poland Portugal Sweden Slovenia


Slovenia

Sweden

Portugal

Poland

Norway

Netherlands

IsraelIreland

HungaryGreece

United Kingdom

Finland

Spain

Czech Republic

Switzerland

3

4

5

6

7

3,5 4 4,5 5 5,5 6

Trust in the European Parliament

Tru

st

in c

ou

ntr

y's

pa

rlia

me

nt

Trust parliament and EP


SwitzerlandCzech Republic

Spain

Finland

United Kingdom

Greece

Hungary

Ireland

Israel

Netherlands

Norway

Poland

Portugal

Sweden

Slovenia

3

4

5

6

7

3,5 4 4,5 5 5,5 6

Trust in the European Parliament

Trus

t in

the

Uni

ted

Nat

ions

Trust UN and EP


Trust national governmentsept. 2002 – march 2003

3

4

5

6

7

sep 2 sep 4 oct 2 oct 4 nov 2 nov 4 nov/dec 1 dec 3 dec/jan 1 jan 3 jan 5 feb 2 feb 4 mar 2 mar 4Switzerland Czech Republic Spain Finland United Kingdom Greece Hungary



Trust politicianssept. 2002 – march 2003

2

3

4

5

6




Trust EU governmentsept. 2002 – march 2003

3

4

5

6

7




Trust UNsept. 2002 – march 2003

3

4

5

6

7




Attitude immigrationsept. 2002 – march 2003

-1

-0,75

-0,5

-0,25

0

0,25

0,5

0,75

1

sep 2

Switzerland Czech Republic Spain Finland United Kingdom Greece Hungary



Events and attitudes

• Relationship not obvious– No general pattern response process and

attitudes (late respondents more cynical?)

– No similar pattern countries over time

• Because– More general attitudes than opinion poll?– Complicated relationship between

sample composition over time and attitudes?


Adaptions round 2

• Collect and report on information on international events centrally; national impact or offspring of international events locally

• Weekly reports instead of monthly• No links• Base reports on at least one quality

newspaper and one popular newspaper• Future addition: ask respondents about

important (inter)national events• Feasibility test: automated selection and

coding of events, using special dictionaries


Event database• Even without a direct relationship

with attitudes and despite the individual differences, the event database gives a fascinating overview of what occupied Europe and the participating countries during the ESS fieldwork

the european social survey: the potential for research and teaching. royal statistical society,...

Documents

royal statistical society

social protection

social security

social situation

reporting slide

survey data available

survey results

education systems