Attitude to the Census (June - July 1987)

Attitude of the German population to the census after 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; conversations
about the census in social surroundings and topics discussed; attitude
to the census in circle of friends and acquaintances; perceived
attitude of the population to the census; conversation contact with the
canvasser; questionnaire filled out oneself or by canvasser;
individually filling out questionnaire or information for entire
household from a single person; duration of filling it out; response or
boycott behavior during the survey; type of questionnaire return;
attitude to the question program of the census and personal change in
attitude from knowledge of the questionnaire; intent to participate;
response or boycott behavior in circle of friends and acquaintances;
topics noticed in media reporting about the census and tendency of
content of these articles; attitude to use of canvassers; assessment
and importance of trustworthiness of canvasser; attitude to punishment
of census boycotters as well as persons calling for boycott; attitude
to the requirement to provide information in the census (scale);
attitude to the boycott and to criticism of the census (scale);
attitude to government statistics; personal concerns regarding misuse
of personal census data; trust in observance of data protection;
knowledge about the office for data protection and the office of the
data protection official.

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
additional persons 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.