Collecting, Processing and Archiving Empirical Data

The Data Bank receives and processes selected machine-readable data from major research institutions, projects and centres gathering and producing social science data. Its data holdings cover a wide range of areas such as:

• Marriage and family
• Youth and education
• Ageing and Public health
• Social structure and social stratification
• Lifestyle
• Public opinion
• Political behavior and attitudes;
• Elections;
• National identity and race relations;
• Institutional development;
• Elite and mass behavior;
• Industrial relations;
• Economic behavior;
• Social issues and values;
• Agriculture and rural life;
• Ecology;
• Media
• Demography and many other topics.

These data allow the plotting of numerical information, modelling of social processes and solving various practical and methodological problems. The DBSR's potential is a source of essential information not only for social scientists, but also for Russian citizens and policy-makers.

The DBSR consists of the following data bases:

• DBSR STUDIES - detailed information on all datasets;
• DBSR QUESTIONS - the complete text of all questionnaires;
• DBSR CODEBOOKS - codebooks of the selected studies;
• DBSR FILES - machine-readable data.

The data base "DBSR FILES" is divided into three classes based on their accessibility to users. The authors wish to reserve their rights to the results of their studies for a period of time, after which their data are placed into a more accessible class.

The DBSR maintains a large and rapidly growing collection of machine-readable data and provides assistance in using the data. Computer-readable data are available on diskettes or via network.

Codebooks of selected studies are available in printed and machine-readable form.