Graduation Study 2010 (Gymnasiasten-Studie, Fourth Wave)

Panel data on private and occupational life courses and personal attitudes (Gymnasiasten-Studie, Fourth wave).

Topics: 1. Education: highest educational degree; time received highest degree; school’s general educational success; type of student; duration of all school stages; net time of school education; duration of the first school stage and further stages.

2. Vocational training and study: kind of occupation and duration of all included stages; reason for unemployment; kind of school, major or sector of vocational training; degree studying for or minor; completed school or university degree; legal clerkship; grade; satisfied with studies; financial resources during studies and amount of support payments; change of financial sources; kind of financial sources and amount; extension of studies due to work; number of extended semesters; similarities of studies and work; work experience; professional network and work mainly focused on during studies; major subject studied and entry into professional life; enjoyed studying; studied successfully; studied successfully apart from parallel stages; overall time studied and stages during studying; progress of studies; success at the vocational college; net time of all stages of legal clerkship; stages of vocational training; periods of (vocational) college; last stage of vocational college; pre studies; main studies; subjects studied; additional studies; changed studies; stages of studies and time of last study.

3. Other stages of life course: working stages; marriage and parenthood; leisure; job; breaks during life course; military or community service.

4. Occupational life (retrospective): occupational title and position for all occupations held (ISCO 68, ISCO 88, SIOPS and MPS); weekly hours of work; professional satisfaction; starting and final salary; reasons for changing the job; changed job within company; occupation in public service; sector; size of company; secondary employments: title of secondary employment (ISCO 68, ISCO 88, SIOPS and MPS); gross hourly wage; beginning and ending of each secondary employment; career overview; career expectations; career evaluation; career achieved or ahead; beginning and ending of biggest occupational success; regretting unemployment or reason why not; occupation (ISCO 68, ISCO 88, SIOPS and MPS) aiming for and expected time of achieving.

5. Partner: occupational title and position for all occupations held (ISCO 68, ISCO 88, SIOPS and MPS); weekly hours of work; professional satisfaction; starting and final salary; occupation in public service; sector; size of company; profession’s prestige (Treiman and Wegener); second wave: monthly income; occupational status and position; occupation in public service; reason for unemployment; educational training; vocational training; university degree at the time of the second wave and before; start of relationship and time of first shared household; time of marriage and separation; kind of separation; marriage plans; church wedding; reason for not marrying; age difference; education; kind of vocational training; studying; university degree; for starting point and endpoint of each stage: occupational status, reason for unemployment; occupation in public service; net monthly wage; occupational position; length of relationship; number of marriages and divorces in 2010 and 1997.

6. Household: size; flatmates; size of household in 2010; flatmates in 1997 and 2010; relationship status at the second wave (1985); relationship status in 1997 and 2010; time of moving out of parent’s household; time of starting first own household; time of maintenance of that household.

7. Parents: self-employment of father; father’s education; father still alive or year of death; mother still alive or year of death; year of separation or divorce; father dead in 1970; time not lived with parents (month and year); parents still alive in 1997; month and year of first own household.

8. Previous relationships: relationship in 1985: beginning of relationship and time of moving in together; time of marriage and separation; time of finding the way back to each other; church wedding; marriage plans; church wedding plans; reason not to marry; kind of separation; time of separation of other relationships; occupation and occupational position (ISCO 68, ISCO 88); partner’s profession’s prestige (Treiman and Wegener) (1985) and other partners.

9. Starting one’s family: start of relationship and time of first shared household; church wedding; time of marriage and separation; kind of separation; time of divorce; parentship.

10. Children: number of children in 1997; number of additional children since third wave; dead children; day of birth; age in month at the time of the fourth wave; respondent’s age when children were born; gender; kind of child care; care taker for children born after 1985; school attending and kind of school in 1997 and 2010; children’s educational aspiration; highest degree; children attending university; children studying in 2010; studies finished; subjects studied; started or finished vocational training; vocational training in 2010; reason for unemployment; previous occupations; occupational position; own household; year children moved out; children share household with their partner; geographical distance; regularity of contact with children; quality of relationship; financial support for children and amount of payments; children having own children; number of grandchildren.

11. Grandchildren: respondent is grandparent; number of grandchildren; respondent’s age in month when grandchildren were born; respondent’s child is father or mother of grandchild; age of respondent’s child when grandchildren were born; grandchildren’s month of birth; grandchildren’s age in month at the time of the fourth wave; gender; geographical distance to household grandchildren live in; regularity of contact; quality of relationship; taking care of grandchildren; frequency of care taking.

12. Preparation of retirement: partial, early or no retirement; partial retirement in 2010; partial retirement possible; respondent already partially retired; extend of work reduced; weekly working hours; work model chosen (part-time or temporary); agreements for transition to retirement; compulsory or self-chosen age of retirement; evaluation of decision for early retirement; wish for early retirement; importance of employment until age 65; planning partial retirement and wish for starting it; work-related plans until retirement; employers or personal reason for early retirement; naming concrete reasons; planning retirement; possibility to continue working at current work place after retirement and intention to do so; possibility to continue working in current occupation after retirement and intention to do so; working days of former occupation; age at the end of former occupation; intention to take on another occupation (ISCO 68, ISCO 88 and profession’s prestige by Treiman and Wegener); intended scope of employment within that occupational field; goals for retirement; goals of earlier occupations; correlation of goals and employment; kind of private pension to cover retirement; changes in living standards and private live; change of residence and its reason (e.g. reducing distance to children); total number of children wished for; confidence concerning parenting skills; recognition of personal education model; importance of children’s societal position; disappointment about children’s social decline; attitudes towards family; attitudes towards and legitimation of marriage; self-assessment as juvenile and adult at the age of 30; satisfied with number of children or regretting childlessness.

13. Self-evaluation of life course: evaluation of biography and wrong decisions made; meaningful events in life (1984 and 1997); personal mentor in life (1984 and 1997); overall and personal attribution of success (1984 and 1997): importance of diligence, luck, ancestry and talent overall and concerning personal biography; people who helped reaching one’s goals.

14. Social identification: social class affiliation; assessment of personal lifestyle; peer group; evaluation of equal
opportunities overall and equal educational opportunities in Germany; assessment of belonging to the elite; attitudes towards work; attitudes towards society: feeling at home in society.

15. Religion: religion and the meaning of life (1984, 1997 and 2010); denomination (1984 and 1997); year of leaving church; previous denomination; change of denomination; year of change of denomination; frequency of going to church (1984 and 1997).

16. Importance of life between 1984, 1997 and 2010 (scale); overall, private and occupational satisfaction.

17. Politics: values wanted for society; post-materialism (1984/5, 1997 and 2010); interested in politics (1984/5 and 1997); voting behavior at the parliamentary elections from 1972 to 1994; most important political goals; second vote (1998, 2001, 2005 and 2009).

18. Personal goals: persistent pursuance of personal goals versus flexible adaption of personal goals.

19. Leisure: daily hours for leisure during the week and at the week end; preferred leisure activities and their frequency; willingness to invest more time in those activities; time of watching TV (overall and before 6pm); number of weeks of holiday in 2010; charity work; sector and kind of charity work; weekly hours doing charity work in 2010; other kinds of unpaid volunteering apart from helping family members; sector, kind and weekly hours of unpaid help.

20. Health and pension: self-reported health; physical heath restrictions; psychological or emotional problems; nursing case within the family and relationship with dependent person; active care taking; nursing care insurance except statutory one; thinking about residential change at elder age; kind of alternative residence; having made an advance decision; having a heath care proxy; thoughts about the last will and making one.

21. Finance: received inheritance or gifts and its amounts; income from rent or lease and its total amount of last year; income from funds and its total amount; receiving transfer payments and kind of transfer payments.

22. Remembering the questions on attitudes: assessment of one’s memory of the questions about attitudes in the last survey; agreement to participate in the next survey and approval for address storage.

23. Demography: age; gender.

Interview rating: presence of others during the interview; rating of answer reliability.

Additionally coded was: duration of the interview; certainty of the global, occupational and private biography of 2010; respondent’s willingness to cooperate on the attitude questions; breaks during the interview by third persons; incidents during the interview and its descriptions; respondent’s wish for information material about the research project; time of second, third and fourth wave; monthly net income at the age of 30, 43 and 56; five step education variable; degree of urbanization; residence abroad; inhabitants; coded each at the age of 30, 43 and 56: prestige at the time and highest ever (MPS); income; last and highest job satisfaction; last and highest weekly working hours; occupation.