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Harmonisation across countries in SHARE

Workshop on Harmonisation of Social Survey Data for Cross-National Comparison

Prague 19. October 2010

Stephanie Stuck

MEA, University of Mannheim

Cross-national, Interdisciplinary & Longitudinal

Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe

SHARE Population

Residents aged 50 and over & their partners

Wave 1 (2004/05): AT, BE, CH, DE, DK, ES, FR, GR, IL, IT, NL, SE

Wave 2 (2006/07): new countries: CZ, IE, PL

Wave 3 (2008/09) Life Histories

Wave 4 (2010/11): new countries EE, HU, LU, PT, SI

20 Countries

Ex-Ante Harmonisation

Ex-ante harmonisation in SHARE takes place at various levels and all steps of the process Organisation Contracts with survey agencies Interviewer Training Fieldwork Questionnaires & Translations CAPI & SMS (sample management system) Data processing & releases Documentation

Organisational Features

Central coordination: MEA, University of Mannheim

Country teams in each SHARE country

Area teams: Economics Health Social Networks

Teams for weights and imputations

Programming and technical data processing: CentERdata (Tilburg, NL)

Survey agencies & fieldwork

Model contracts provided by MEA

Interviewer training is centrally coordinated 3 Train the Trainers (TTT) workshops per wave

(pilot, pretest & main survey ( at least 2 days each)) Training contents Model for national training sessions Country teams are present at TTTs and national trainings

Common sample management system (SMS) Information on all households, contacts, refusals, interview

status…

Central fieldwork monitoring

Questionnaires & Translations

Generic English versions Baseline Longitudinal End of Life SHARELIFE

Translated in all SHARE languages Arabic, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, English, French,

Flemish, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish

Internet based translation tool: LMU (language management utility) developed by CentERdata

Translations Tool LMU

LMU Generic questionnaire

version is displayed on the left side

Translations are entered on the right

Standard answer categories, sequences or fills have to be translated only once

Show cards are derived automatically

Information on status of translation is displayed

Translation Tool LMU

CAPI & SMS Instruments

One common CAPI and SMS program for all

Translations are transferred automatically from LMU

Instruments (and preload) are transferred to survey agencies via central server

Raw data goes back to central server

Data processing

Data processing is coordinated by MEA and done in very close cooperation with country teams to insure harmonised processing Instructions and program templates are provided by MEA Country teams write programs MEA runs all programs centrally

Weights and imputations are computed by special teams for all SHARE countries centrally

Generated variables are produced by MEA

Ex-Ante Harmonisation

Requires a lot of… Meetings Coordination Communication Discussions Compromises

Has some limits, therefore we document country specific deviations do ex-post harmonisation

Documentation of Country Specifics

Documentation of Country Specifics

Ex-Post Harmonisation

Education: ISCED

Occupation: ISCO

Industry: NACE

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Comments or Questions ?

Thank you !

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