The Microcensus is a representative population sample containing structural population and labour market data in which 1 percent of all households in Germany are involved (ongoing household sample).

The Microcensus has been introduced in the "former" states since 1957 and in the new states and East-Berlin since 1991.

The Microcensus provides statistical information on the economic and social situtation of the population as well as on employment, the labour market and the education system (multipurpose sample). The Microcensus updates the results of the population census. Moreover, it serves the streamlining of other official statistics, e.g. the income and consumer panel. The sampling on labour of the European Union is also integrated in the Microcensus.

The results of the Microcensus are an essential information source for Parliament, government, administration, science and the public throghout the country. They are used in government reports and in the annual expert opinions by the German Council for the appraisal of macroeconomic development. They also build the basis for ongoing labour market and occupation research, the annual annuity insurance reports of the government, and more. The results from the labour force sample of the EU are also used for the allocation of EU regional and social funds.

Yes. Legal basis is the „Mikrozensusgesetz“ of January 17, 1996 (BGB1. I S.34) in combination with the law on statistics for federal purposes from January 22, 1987 (BGB1. I S. 462, 565). It was changed last by adding article 2 of the law from January 17, 1996 (BGB1. I S. 34). The EU evaluation of workforce was regulated in the order (EEC) no. 3711/1991 of the council from December 16, 1991 for conducting an annual evaluation on workforce in the European Community. It was substituted by the order of the council from March 9, 1998 for conducting an evaluation on workforce in the European Community (EC) no. 577/98.

Until 2004 the Microcensus was conducted once a year. Since this year (2005) the Microcensus is conducted continously throughout the whole year.

The organizational and technical preparations for the Microcensus take place in the Federal Statistical Office. The interviews and the processing are the responsibility of the statistical offices of the different states (decentralized statistics).

The Microcensus is a random sample in which all households have the same probability to be selected. Out of the whole country, certain regions are chosen in which then all households and persons get interviewed. The way in which the regions are selected are based upon the procedures of the census in 1987. For the new states a comparable selection was established based upon the “Bevölkerungsregister Statistik”. With the help from the statistics on house building activity, the selection is regularly updated.

In the 2013 Microcensus roughly 336.200 households and respectively 683000 individuals were surveyed. Extrapolated this corresponds to 80611000 individuals.

In the Microcensus a quarter of all households in the sample get replaced every year. Consequently, every household stays in the sample for 4 years.

The Microcensus survey is generally conducted face-to-face by an interviewer. This method is the fastest and involves the least effort for the interviewee. However, the respondents are also granted the opportunity to report the information in written form.

Interviewees are all persons of a household. Under certain circumstances, external information from other household members is allowed.

The questions of the Microcensus consists of a fixed basic and ammendatory programmes. On top of that there are ammendatory programmes which are conducted on a 4 year basis. There are certain parts that are not obligatory.

The annual basic content of the Microcensus includes personal information (age, sex, citizenship etc.), information regarding connections between family and household as well as characteristics about main and secondary domiciles, employment, job search, unemployment, income etc. In the annual ammendatory programme additional questions are asked concerning employment, personal information and professional and general education. Within the 4 year ammendatory programmes information about commuting, the living situation, health insurance, health in general and disability are surveyed.

The response rate in the Microcensus is regularly 97 percent. 3 percent fall out mostly because they were unavailable. These so-called “known losses” are compensated for by a special procedure. The “non-response” quota, in questions which are optional, vary depending on the matter.h.

The information, especially about employment, applies to the defined reference week. Usually it is the last week of April without any holiday.

Employed persons are all those who are 15 and older and who have worked at least one hour in the reference week (“labour force concept”).

The results of the Microcensus are offered for representation units “household – family- persons” in the form of a sum total. Besides federal results, there are also diverse results for individual states available. A deeper, more regional classification is restricted; therefore results can only be made available for large verification groups.

Currently the results are published for the press via official press releases. On top of that, the Federal Statistical Office regularly publishes Microcensus results in the so-called “Fachserien”: Fachserie 1, row 4.1.1: Position and development of employment; row 4.1.2: profession, education and working conditions of employees; Fachserie 1, row 3: households and families; Fachserie 13, row 1: health insured and annuity insurances as well as Fachserie 12, row: S.3: questions concerning health (irregular). State results are published by the states´ statistical offices. Comments on the results and methods can be found in the magazine “ Wirtschaft und Statistik”.

Information can be received from the Federal Statistical Office, as well as from the staff of the Microcensus departments of the state offices.

According to §16(6) of the Bundesstatistikgesetz, the Microcensus´ Scientific Use Files can only be delivered to independent domestic research institutes. It is a precondition to compose a license agreement with the Federal Statistical Office and you are also sworn to secrecy of all persons who work with the data. This special obligation usually applies to civil servants (university); otherwise it has to be carried out by the Federal Statistical Office.

The Microcensus guidelines restrict the usage of data to Germany.

1. There is the possibility to fall back on publications. Detailed tables to various areas of the Microcensus can be found in the different "Fachseries" at the Federal Statistical Office.
   

• Fachserie 1, Reihe 3: Haushalte und Familien
• Fachserie 1, Reihe 4.1.1: Stand und Entwicklung der Erwerbstätigkeit
• Fachserie 1, Reihe 4.1.2: Beruf, Ausbildung und Arbeitsbedingungen der Erwerbstätigen

2. The Federal Statistical Office also carries out special evaluations on reimbursement of expenses. Contact:
   
   Statistisches Bundesamt
   Zweigstelle Bonn
   Referat H 306 Auswertung und Analyse der Haushaltserhebungen, Wohnen
   Postfach 170377
   53029 Bonn

   E-Mail: mikrozensus(at)destatis(dot)de

The personal wish to use the data for a thesis or dissertation does not automatically fulfil the legal conditions. The Microcensus´ Scientific Use File can only be obtained by domestic universities and other research institutes with the responsibility to do independent research. If the purpose of the thesis or dissertation is part of department research etc. and the university applied for the data, it can be used within the context of university research. Therefore, the integration into the regular university research is important. For more information see: http://www.forschungsdatenzentrum.de/nutzung/fdz_nutzungsbedingungen.pdf

The statistical offices are offering the possibility to download anonymized data of the Microcensus as the so-called Campus File (so far available 1976, 1998, 2002 and Microcensus-Panel 1996-99 (updated: February 2012)). This can be easily accessed and used by students.

See below:
http://www.forschungsdatenzentrum.de/campus-file.asp

The available Microcencus data as a Scientific Use File can be ordered at the Research Data Centres of the Federal Statistical Office and the statistical offices of the Länder.

Research Data Centre

of the statistical offices of the Länder
- Geschäftsstelle -
c/o Information und Technik NRW
Postfach 101105
40002 Düsseldorf
forschungsdatenzentrum@it.nrw.de

of the Federal Statistical Office
- Forschungsdatenzentrum -
Gustav-Stresemann-Ring 11
65180 Wiesbaden
forschungsdatenzentrum@destatis.de

See: Request Form

If you are interested in the Microcensus or you are already a user, you can contact the GML and receive following consulting services:

• Advice on to what extent the research plan can be realized with the data from the Microcensus
• Advice on drawing up an application form (research plan)
• Advice on technical questions (Technical equipment, data protection etc.)
• Advice on questions about evaluation and analyses.

General precautions:

1. Contractional obligations of the beneficiary of factual anonymized data;

• appropriate technical and organizational measures for controlling the data usage:
• Contractual penalty when attempting to re-identify
• Usage boundaries to research purposes
• No data forwarding to third party
• Deletion or rather return of the data after conclusion of the research project
• Handling of data extracts or duplicates as the original file
• No investigation regarding the local implementation of the sample plans

2. Secrecy of the local implementation of the sample plans through official statistics
3. Systemless arrangement of the data

Anonymization measures regarding the Microcensus (basic file):

1. Regional data only highly oversimplified available (merely state and structure of the residential area or rather oversimplified municipality size)
   • No single municipality with less than 500,000 inhabitants must be identifiable
   • A jurisdiction, which consists of several communities, may not have less than 400,000 inhabitants in any state.
2. No nationality or group of nationalities with less than 50,000 people may be identifiable
3. Oversimplifying features from all other variables – if necessary – so that in the univariate marginal distribution each acknowledged characteristic value for the Federal Republic of Germany comprises at least 5,000 cases.
4. Only a 70-percent sample of the orignial data is delivered.

The microdata mailing list provides a discussion and information forum to official microdata. By E-Mail problems can be discussed and questions to official statistics can be answered.

You can subscribe here: The mailinglist for microdata and more mailinglists.

On the GML webpages under Downloads and Publications there are more documents to download.

Publications based on the Microcensus Scientific Use File can be found here.

Other official microdata is documented in MISSY systematically:

• AES (Adult Education Survey)
• EU-LFS (European Union Labour Force Survey)
• CIS (Community Innovation Survey)
• EU-SILC (European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions)
• SES (Structure of Earnings Survey)

Further data is not documented systematically, but documentation (variable lists, questionnaires, setups, information about data access) is availabe for:

• Microcensus 1962-1969 (GESIS-files)
• Microcensus-Panelfiles (1996-199)
• Microcensus-Panelfiles (2001-2004)
• Microcensus Regionalfile
• Microcensus Supplementary Survey 1971

The website of the German Microdata Lab covers

• Income and Expenditure Survey (EVS)
• 1970 Population and Occupation Census
• GDR Data
• Workplace and Occupation Censuses
• Data from the Federal Employment Service Agency (BA)

An overview over further microdata which is available for the (scientific) public in Germany, but is not documented by the German Microdata Lab can be found here. For informationen regarding the access to official microdata click here.

The Microcensus questionnaire program consists of a consistent basic program which releases socio-economic basic information providing the current monitoring of the labour market. Addressing all households this basic program includes information on:

• all persons of a household and how the household is made up,
• occupation, unemployment, job search, economically non-active population,
• attendance at kindergarten, school or university,
• education and vocational training,
• sources of livelihood, income level, compulsory pension insurance,
• the compulsory and private health insurance and
• the insurance for old-age care.

In addition to the basic program and its features, which are surveyed annually, there are also supplementary programmes. These programmes give information on vocational and further training, current and previous occupation and labour force participation. Furthermore, there are additional programmes with features focussing on different topics. These are not surveyed annually. From 2005 onwards the survey also includes ad-hoc modules of the Labour Force Survey.

The following tables give an overview of the different supplementary and additional programmes, their sampling fractions and years of survey.

• survey program Mikrocensus 2005-2012
• survey program Mikrocensus 1996-2004
• survey program Mikrocensus 1985-1995
• survey program Mikrocensus 1973-1985

Until 2004, the samples for the Microcensus supplementary and additional programmes are drawn with a sampling fraction of 0.5% or 1%. In order to meet the requirements of accuracy defined by Eurostat concerning the Microcensus survey program and the integrated EU Labour Force Survey, the sampling fractions differ in their size on county level (NUTS II): 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 or even 1.0%. For federal average this makes a sampling fraction of 0.45% on an average. These requirements of accuracy are defined in the Verordnung (EG) Nr. 577/98 des Rates vom 9.3.1998 zur Durchführung einer Stichprobenerhebung über Arbeitskräfte in der Gemeinschaft, Artikel 3; Repräsentatitivität der Stichprobe, as follows: (1) “As to a group of unemployed, representing 5% of the working age population, the relative standard error of estimated annual averages (or spring averages in case of an annual survey in spring) may only constitute on NUTS II level at the most 8% of the mentioned population group.

The Microcensus’ Basic Scientific Use File, provides rather detailed information on professions, branches of economic activity, citizenship, etc. Information on geographical areas, however, are – due to data confidentiality reasons – limited. Only information on the German federal states (Bundeslaender) and the classification of community size (Gemeindegroessenklasse) are available.

In contrast the Mikrocensus’ Regional Scientific Use File (2000), provides less detailed information on socioeconomic and socio-demographic characteristics but rather detailed information on geographical areas. The most detailed regional areas are the ‘Mikrozensus-Kreisregionen’ (MZKR; district areas with at least 100,000 inhabitants), which are based on administrative local units (Kreise and siedlungsstrukturelle Kreistypen).
See here.

See Herter-Eschweiler, R. (2019): Der Mikrozensus und die Möglichkeiten seiner Regionalisierung, S. 205-225 in: Arbeitsgruppe Regionale Standards (Hrsg.) 2019: Regionale Standards Ausgabe 2019. GESIS Schriftenreihe Band 23. Köln: GESIS.
See here.

No, West- and East-Berlin can be differentiated by means of the variables "federal state" (EF1) and "Gemeindegrößenklasse" (community size).

The variable "Gemeindegrößenklasse" (community size) is in microcensus:

Principally, it is possible to compare the labor force survey and microcensus. In Germany, the EU labor force survey is carried out as a subsample of the microcensus. Since the 1996 microcensus, employment is surveyed according to the labor force concept using four guiding questions on employment. Based upon ILO standards, the population is categorized as employed civilians, unemployed civilians, and those not available for the labor market (children, retirees, etc.). In accordance with the ILO international standards the microcensus defined any person as unemployed if he/she was not employed for at least one hour in the one-week reference period, but actively sought work. While the ILO definition of unemployment, however, also emphasizes the criterion of labor-market availability, this criterion was not considered in the Federal Statistical Office’s publications on employment which were based upon the microcensuses until 1996. Labor-market availability has only been recorded separately since 1996. The corresponding variable for implementing the ILO definition, however, is included in the microcensus files from 1985.

Further information:

• Schmidt, S. (2000): Erwerbstätigkeit im Mikrozensus. Konzepte, Definition, Umsetzung. ZUMA-Arbeitsbericht Nr. 2000/01.

Microcensus: scientific use files

SUF 1973

The scientific use files from 1973 correspond to a microcensus sample of 70%.

The adjustment of the microcensus results to the ongoing population estimates was not – as in more recent microcensuses – accomplished by weighting, but by duplicating and deleting cases (individual level) (EF76). The figures which served as the benchmark for the microcensus adjustment are based on the population estimates, organized by Germans/immigrants, sex, and administrative district. If, for instance, the designation by these attributes records an undercoverage in the MC sample compared to the benchmark of the population estimate with regard to one designated cohort, i.e. if the sample value amounts to less then 1% of the benchmark, sample cases are duplicated until the sample value corresponds precisely to the benchmark. Conversely, cases are deleted if an overcoverage of cases in a designated cohort is discerned (sample size more than 1% of the corresponding benchmark figure). The duplication and deletion procedure is described in detail in Krug/Nourney: Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistik, 2. Auflage. München: Oldenbourg, 1987 (pp. 145-146). However, from the 3rd edition onward only brief mention is made of this procedure.

SUF 1989ff.

The microcensus scientific use files from 1989 onward also correspond to a 70% subsample.

For the data from 1989-95 there is merely an expansion factor at the household level (MC 1989: EF257U4; resulting from an adjustment of the reference value to the actual value). The adjustment of the microcensus results to the continuous population recording takes place at the individual level, so that for the individual there is no corresponding expansion factor available in the scientific use files 1989-1995. (Test analyses, however, have shown that the use of a household expansion factor in analyses at an individual level does not lead to substantially different results than when using the correct expansion factor.) From the microcensus 1996 onwards, both the household expansion factor and the expansion factor for individuals is available.

Comparative analyses

Because the above-described microcensuses, on the one hand, consist of aggregated as well as individual data and, on the other hand, are based upon various different sampling fractions and adjustment procedures, the conduct of evaluations is recommended as follows:

• analysis in the case of population estimates if published or "official" results are obtained (approximately)

See below:

• Randverteilungen des Mikrozensus
• Hochrechnungsfaktoren

and the pages "Zur Abgrenzung der Bevölkerungsbegriffe und zur Hochrechnung im Mikrozensus SUF...", for example for 1973 und 2009.

For an expansion to the total population (100%) the weighted results have to multiplied by 100.

• Analysis in the case of statistical model estimation

When estimating statistical models we recommend unweighted analysis.

To ensure that data for the scientific use files of the MC 1973-1987 remain fully unweighted (i.e. with no adjustment to the ongoing population estimates and without consideration of the SUF-sampling fraction of 70%), and that a comparative analysis is made for an unweighted estimate of MC data since 1989 onwards, the recommendation is to treat the “original ratios” of surveyed persons included in the MC data 1973-1987 as separate cases. This can be done (e.g. after separating the resident population: ef58=1, ef58=2, ef58=4) by limiting the analysis to the corresponding “original ratios” (for example microcensus1982: ef76=0, ef38>=0&ef38<=1).

The following essay contains further details on expansion factors when estimating total, proportionate and mean values as well as on the adjustment to the population estimates: Rendtel, U./Schimpl-Neimanns, B., 2001: Die Berechnung der Varianz von Populationsschätzern im Scientific Use File des Mikrozensus ab 1996. ZUMA-Nachrichten 48: 85-116.

More information can be found here.

0.45% subsample MC 1996-2004

When using the 0.45% subsample, the special extrapolation procedure with the variable EF755 (microcensus since 1996) needs to be considered. It is described by the Federal Statistical Office as follows: “(…) For the determination of an adjustment factor for the features of a 0.45% subsample, the results of a 1% sample and its subsample within an administrative district are projected with the calculated adjustment factor for the 1% sample, with differentiations between the employed, the unemployed, and those outside of the labor force combined with the variables Germans/immigrants as well as sex. The adjustment factor for the 0.45 % sample [see variable EF755] results from the proportion of the output from the 1% sample (= reference value) and the output from the 0.45% subsample (= actual value) (...)"

Also see:

Hochrechnungsfaktoren

On our website you can find all Microcensus SPSS-, STATA- und SAS-setups for creating an System File which are available as Scientific Use Files.

The SPSS-Setup can be used for the following tasks:

• Importation of the raw data as it is provided by the federal Statistical Office
• Transforming alphanumeric variables into numeric variables
• Replacing missing values (blanks)
• Recoding und Declaring the missing values
• Adding Variable Labels
• Adding Value Labels
• Storing the final SPSS-Systemfile

General information about the Microcensus as well as about the processing of raw data with SPSS, can be found in the Readme-file of the respective SETUP.

From Microcensus 2007 onwards the research data centers of the statistical offices also provide system files for the most frequently used programs SPSS, SAS and Stata that were created with these setups.

With the programm Stat/Transfer, it is possible to reformat an System File into another format. The specifics of the program (for example, the handling of missing values​​, conventions for representing long labels, etc) have to be taken into account.

With newer versions of SPSS Stata data files can also be created directly: SAVE TRANSLATE [...] \ TYPE = STATA.