Attitude to the Census (March - April 1987)

Attitude of the German population to the census before census day, 31
May 1987. Political attitudes.

Topics: political interest; satisfaction with democracy in the Federal
Republic; difficulties in taking care of official matters; sympathy
scale for political parties; attitude to the census and intent to
participate; knowledge about the compulsory participation requirement;
personal consequences of non-participation; willingness to participate
given threat of fine; response or boycott behavior during the survey;
time of last noticed media reports about the census and tendency of the
content of these articles; conversations about the census in social
surroundings and time of last conversation; living together with a
partner and his attitude to the census; assumed participation of
partner in the census; attitude to the census in circle of friends and
acquaintances as well as their assumed willingness to participate;
perceived attitude of the population as well as parties, churches and
trade unions to the census; knowledge about the survey procedure;
attitude to government statistics; personal concerns regarding misuse
of personal census data; trust in observance of data protection;
attitude to the census in 1983; willingness to participate in a
microcensus survey; attitude to technology; self-assessment on a
left-right continuum; knowledge about the office for data protection
and the data protection official; earlier participation in a survey and
type of survey; attitude to opinion polls (scale).

Demography: month of birth of respondent; sex; marital status; number
of children; ages of children (classified); religious denomination;
frequency of church attendance; school education; vocational training;
occupation; occupational position; employment; monthly gross income of
respondent and household altogether; number of persons contributing to
household income; size of household; position of respondent in
household; characteristics of head of household; number of persons
eligible to vote in household; persons in household who do not have
German citizenship; self-assessment of social class; union membership
of respondent and other members of household; possession of a
telephone.

Interviewer rating: presence of third persons during interview and
person desiring this presence; intervention of others in interview and
person introducing this intervention; attitude to the census of persons
additionally present during interview; presence of further persons in
other rooms; willingness to cooperate and reliability of respondent.

Also encoded was: length of interview; date of interview;
identification of interviewer; sex of interviewer; age of interviewer
test.