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Data Collection Periods:

• 1980: January 1980 to February 1980
• 1982: February 1982 to May 1982
• 1984: March 1984 to June 1984
• 1986: March 1986 to May 1986
• 1988: April 1988 to July 1988
• 1990: March 1990 to May 1990
• 1991: May 1991 to July 1991
• 1992: May 1992 to June 1992
• 1994: February 1994 to May 1994
• 1996: March 1996 to June 1996
• 1998: March 1998 to July 1998
• 2000: January 2000 to July 2000
• 2002: February 2002 to August 2002
• 2004: March 2004 to July 2004
• 2006: March 2006 to August 2006

Scientific Council:

• Klaus Allerbeck, University of Frankfurt;
• Jutta Allmendinger, University of Munich;
• Hans-Jürgen Andreß, University of Cologne;
• Wilhelm Bürklin, University of Potsdam;
• Andreas Diekmann, ETH Zurich;
• Hubert Feger, University of Berlin;
• Johannes Huinink, University of Bremen;
• Marie Luise Kiefer, University of Vienna;
• M. Rainer Lepsius, University of Heidelberg;
• Karl Ulrich Mayer, Max Planck Institute for Educational Research, Berlin;
• Heiner Meulemann, University of Cologne;
• Walter Müller, University of Mannheim;
• Karl Dieter Opp, University of Leipzig;
• Franz Urban Pappi, University of Mannheim;
• Erwin K. Scheuch, University of Cologne;
• Rüdiger Schmitt-Beck, Universität Köln;
• Heike Solga, University of Göttingen;
• Rolf Ziegler, University of Munich

Data Collector:

• GETAS, Bremen (1980-84)
• GFM-GETAS (IPSOS), Hamburg (1988, 1998)
• INFAS, Bonn (1990, 2002)
• Infratest (Burke), Munich (1986, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2006)

Contents:

The original surveys have been designed to monitor trends in attitudes, behavior, and societal change in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The main topics of this cumulative study are:

1. Economy
2. Political attitudes and participation
3. Attitudes relating to the process of German re-unification
4. Social inequality and the welfare state
5. Confidence in public institutions and organizations
6. National pride
7. Ethnocentrism and minorities
8. Attachment to various political entities
9. Attitudes towards marriage, family, and partnership
10. Attitudes towards abortion
11. Questions on AIDS (HIV)
12. Importance of life aspects and job characteristics
13. Free time activities
14. Use of media
15. Religiousness, cosmology, and church attachment
16. Environment
17. Attitudes towards and contacts with the administration
18. Anomia and fear of crime
19. Deviant behavior and sanctions
20. ALLBUS-Demography
21. Data on the interview
22. Derived indices

Topics:

1. Economy: assessments of the present and future economic situation in Germany and in one's own federal state; assessment of present and future personal economic situation.
2. Political attitudes and participation: satisfaction with federal government, state government, German democracy, and with the performance of the German political system (political support); self-placement on left-right continuum; political interest; party inclination; voting intention (Sonntagsfrage); electoral participation and voting behavior in the past election; party-sympathy-scales for the CDU, CSU, SPD, FDP, Republicans (Republikaner), NPD, PDS, DKP as well as the Greens (Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen); political participation; voluntary activities or honorary offices; attitudes towards nuclear energy, the death penalty for terrorists, towards the privatization of publicly owned companies, and towards abortion; democracy scale; postmaterialism (importance of law and order, fighting rising prices, free expression of opinions, and influence on governmental decisions).
3. Attitudes relating to the process of German re-unification: attitude towards the demand for increased willingness to make sacrifices in the West and more patience in the East; unification is advantageous, for East and West respectively; future of the East depends on the willingness of eastern Germans to make an effort; strangeness of citizens; performance pressure in the new states; attitude towards dealing with the Stasi-past of individuals; evaluation of socialism as an idea.
4. Social inequality and the welfare state: fair share in standard of living; self-assessment of social class and classification on a top-bottom-scale; evaluation of personal occupational success, comparison with father's position and personal occupational expectations for the future; perceived strength of conflicts between social groups; attitudes towards the German economic system and evaluation of policies supporting the welfare state; evaluation of equal educational opportunities for everyone; prerequisites for social success; income differences as incentive to achieve; acceptance of social differences; evaluation of personal social security; attitudes towards expansion or cuts in social services; attitudes towards cuts in the defense budget; perceived stance of the federal government in these matters.
5. Confidence in public institutions and organizations: health service, federal constitutional court, federal parliament, local government, German armed forces, churches, judiciary, television, newspapers, universities, federal government, trade unions, police, employment offices, retirement insurance, employers' association, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Court of Justice.
6. National pride: pride in German institutions and German achievements; pride in being a German.
7. Ethnocentrism and minorities: attitude towards the influx of eastern European ethnic Germans, asylum seekers, labor from EU or non-EU countries; perceived consequences of presence of foreigners in Germany; treatment of foreigners by the administration; ranking in terms of importance of different citizenship requirements; attitudinal scale and contacts with foreigners (split: guest-workers) within the family, at work, in the neighborhood, or among friends; opinion on dual citizenship and on equal rights for foreigners; perceived strength of conflict between guest workers and German citizens; support for the teaching of Islam in public schools; estimation of proportion of foreigners in East and West Germany and in the neighborhood where respondent lives; perceived differences in lifestyle; indicators for social distance to ethnic minorities and foreigners; items on anti-Semitism.
8. Attachment to various political entities: attachment to one's own municipality, the federal state, the old Federal Republic resp. the GDR, unified Germany and the EU.
9. Attitudes towards marriage, family, and partnership: family as a prerequisite for happiness; marriage in case of steady partnership or if child was born; ideal number of children; attitude towards employment of women and mothers; importance of educational goals; most important educational goals in school; classification of the importance of certain educational aspirations for a child; desired characteristics of children; authoritarianism; importance of the family.
10. Attitudes towards abortion: abortion due to endangered health of mother or child; abortion after rape, due to social straits or by single women not wanting to marry; permitting abortion without restriction.
11. Questions on AIDS (HIV): knowledge of the disease AIDS; perceived reports in the media; attitudes towards higher health insurance fees for AIDS-infected people; attitudes towards dismissal of AIDS-infected employees and towards entry refusal for AIDS-infected foreigners; attitude towards mandatory registration of HIV-infected individuals; worry about personal AIDS infection; personal protective measures and behavioral changes; AIDS-infected people in one's own circle of friends.
12. Importance of life aspects and job characteristics: family and children, occupation and work, free time and recreation, friends and acquaintances, kinship, religion and church, politics and public life, neighborhood; preferred job characteristics (security, income, responsibility, etc.).
13. Free time activities: reading books; reading magazines; listening to records, CD's, cassettes; watching videos; using the computer; surfing the internet; private further education; relaxing, being lazy; walking or hiking; yoga, meditation; going to restaurants; visiting friends; visiting relatives; playing games; taking short trips; participating in politics; voluntary activities or honorary offices; attending church or religious events; indulging in art and music; do it yourself; active sport; attending sports events, going to the cinema, to pop concerts, jazz or dance events; classic culture (i.e. opera, classical concerts, theater, exhibitions); .
14. Use of media: frequency of watching television over the week; taste in television programs: shows and quiz shows, sports, movies, news broadcasts, political magazines, art and culture programs, traditional German "Heimat"-films, detective films, action films, sitcom or entertainment series; frequency of reading a daily newspaper per week.
15. Religiousness, cosmology, and church attachment: belief in God, cosmology, and the meaning of life; self-assessment of religiousness; membership in a church; present and former denominational membership; funeral by church; marriage in church; baptism of children; frequency of church attendance and prayer; interest in Christian programs in the media.
16. Environment: perception of general environmental pollution and personally experienced environmental pollution.
17. Attitudes towards and contacts with the administration: evaluation of administration services and assessment of treatment by the administration.
18. Anomia and fear of crime: general feeling of trust in ordinary people and in politicians; social pessimism and orientation towards the future (anomia); fear of crime; fear of unemployment or loss of business.
19. Deviant behavior and sanctions: opinion on various deviant acts with reference to their reprehensibility and the degree to which they deserve persecution; respect of the law; probability of engaging in various deviant acts in the future; self-reported deviant behavior; assessment of probability of being caught committing various crimes; lowering the crime rate through severer punishment; own victimization.
20. ALLBUS-Demography:
    • Details about the respondent: month and year of birth, age, gender, citizenship(s) (nationality); number of citizenships; original citizenship; place of residence (federal state, administrative region, size of municipality, BIK-type of municipality, Boustedt-type of municipality, percentage of foreigners in local county (Kreis)) and length of residence; geographical origin; religious denomination, frequency of church attendance; currently at school or university, general education, vocational training, possession of driver's license, employment status, details about current and former occupation respectively, details about first occupation, industrial sector, fear of unemployment or loss of business, affiliation to public service, length of commute, supervisory functions, date of termination of full- or part-time employment, length of employment, working hours per week (main job and job on the side), size of company, length of unemployment, gaps in occupational biography, desire for employment, principal source of livelihood, respondent's income, age when leaving parental home, migration to East or West Germany, interest in migrating to East or West Germany or to another EC country, length of residence (in the FRG, in this federal state, current place of residence), type of dwelling, self-description of place of residence; telephone; overall health; marital status, marital biography, desire to have children.
    • Details about respondent's current spouse: citizenship(s), number of citizenships, original citizenship, age, religious denomination, school education, vocational training, employment status, details about current and former occupation respectively, date of termination of full- or part- time employment, length of unemployment, fear of unemployment or loss of business.
    • Details about respondents former spouse: age, religious denomination, school education, vocational training, details about current and former occupation respectively.
    • Details about respondent's steady partner: citizenship(s), number of citizenships, original citizenship, age, common household, distribution of household chores, school education, vocational training, employment status, details about current and former occupation respectively, date of termination of full- or part-time employment.
    • Details about respondent's parents and grandparents; country of origin; school education of father and mother, university education of father and mother; vocational training of father and mother, details about parents' occupation.
    • Composition of household: size of household, household income, types of income in household, number of persons older than 17 in household (reduced size of household), number of children.
    • Details about household members: relation to respondent, gender, month and year of birth, age, marital status, income, German citizenship.
    • Details about children not living in the household: number of children not living in the household, sex, age.
    • Respondent's current memberships (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund - DGB (German Confederation of Trade Unions), Deutsche Angestelltengewerkschaft - DAG (German Salaried Employees' Trade Union), Christlicher Gewerkschaftsbund - CGB (Christian Federation of Trade Unions), Union Leitender Angestellter - ULA (Association of Executive Staff), Deutscher Beamtenbund - DBB (German Civil Service Federation), Deutscher Bauernverband (German Farmers Association), trade association, Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie - BDI (Federation of German Industries), association of a liberal profession, other occupational association; choral society, sports club, leisure activity club, local citizens club or community club, other social association, association of German expellees or refugees, charitable association, religious/church organization, youth or student organization, political party, citizens' initiative, other club or association), previous membership in a trade union.
    • Friends and acquaintances (ego-centered networks), including information on: gender, age, kinship, employment and occupational position, voting behavior, mutual familiarity between friends or acquaintances.
21. Data on the interview: date of interview; beginning and end of interview; length of interview; taken part in how many interviews; willingness to join panel; reachability of respondent; presence of respondent at home during the last few weekdays; willingness to participate; presence of other persons during interview; presence of spouse, partner or children during interview; presence of other relatives during interview; interference of other persons in the course of the interview; willingness to cooperate and reliability of information from respondent; details about respondent's residential building and assessment of respondent's neighborhood.
    Details about the interviewer: gender, age, school education of interviewer; identification number, length of experience as an interviewer.
22. Derived indices: Inglehart-index; family typology, classification of private households (according to Porst and Funk); International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO 1968, 1988); occupational prestige (according to Treiman); Standard International Occupational Prestige Scale (SIOPS, according to Ganzeboom), International Socio-economic Index of Occupational Status (ISEI, according to Ganzeboom); magnitude prestige (according to Wegener); occupational meta-classification (according to Pappi and Terwey); class position (according to Goldthorpe); weights.

Total Population and Sample:

• Universe sampled: Federal Republic of Germany (until 1990: West Germany including West Berlin).
• Household samples: From 1980 to 1992 and in 1998, multi-stage random sample of private households addressing all persons who were at least 18 years of age (ADM Sample Design).
• Samples of individuals: In 1994, 1996 and as of 2000 a two-stage, disproportionate random sample was conducted in West Germany (including West Berlin) and East Germany (including East Berlin), comprising all German speaking persons living in private households who were at least 18 years old on 1 January of the year of the survey. In the first sample stage, a specified number of municipalities (Gemeinden) in western and eastern Germany were selected such that the probability of selection was proportional to the number of adult residents in each municipality; in the second sample stage, the prospective interviewees were selected at random from the municipal registers of residents.
• Until 1990 only German citizens were interviewed; as of 1991 German speaking foreigners were also interviewed.

Method of Data Collection:

• Personal interview with standardized questionnaire (PAPI - Paper and Pencil Interviewing; since 2000: CAPI - Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing)
• supplementary data from accompanying ISSP surveys (self-completion questionnaires, drop off)

Primary Sampling Units / Sample-Points:

• Compare study profiles of individual ALLBUS studies.

Response Rate:

• Compare study profiles of individual ALLBUS studies.

Dataset:

Further Notes:

• This cumulative data set of 15 ALLBUS surveys contains all ALLBUS time series (i.e. all questions that have been surveyed at least two times). Notes on the special relation between the CAPI- and PAPI-surveys in 2000 can be found in the respective codebooks and in the methodological reports for ALLBUS 2000.
• A second version of this data set (542 variables) with a shortened demography module is additionally available as Cumulated ALLBUScompact 1980-2006 (ZA No. 4242).