International Social Survey Programme: Social Inequality III - ISSP 1999

The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is a continuous programme of cross-national collaboration running annual surveys on topics important for the social sciences. The programme started in 1984 with four founding members - Australia, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States – and has now grown to almost 50 member countries from all over the world. As the surveys are designed for replication, they can be used for both, cross-national and cross-time comparisons. Each ISSP module focuses on a specific topic, which is repeated in regular time intervals. Please, consult the documentation for details on how the national ISSP surveys are fielded. The present study focuses on questions about social inequality.<br>Social background and good relations as most important
prerequisites for success in the society; most important criteria for
social mobility (scale: personal effort, intelligence or corruption);
reasons for and acceptance of social inequality; Self-assessment of
payment suitable for performance; estimation of actual and adequate
monthly income for occupational groups; responsibility of government to
reduce income differences; attitude to a progressive tax rate;
assessment of the economic differences between poor and rich countries;
attitude towards compensation by additional taxes in the wealthy
countries (Redistribution); justification of better medical supply and
better education for people with higher income; assumption of conflicts
between social groups in the country; self-assessment on a
top-bottom-scale and expectation of the individual level in 10 years;
social mobility; criteria for the classification of payment for work
(scale: responsibility, education, supervisor function, needed support
for family and children or quality of job performance); feeling of a
just payment; characterisation of the actual and the desired social
system of the country, measured by classification on pyramid diagrams;
Self-assessment of the respondent as well as classification of an
unskilled factory worker and a chairman of a large corporation on a
top-bottom-scale; number of books in the parental home in the
respondent’s youth.

Demography: Age; gender; living together with a partner; marital
status; school education; denomination; occupation status; profession
(ISCO code); occupation in the public sector; autonomy; working hours
per week; net income of the respondent; supervisor function; occupation
status as well as profession and supervisor function of the partner;
household structure; family income; size of household; city size;
region; unemployment within the last few years and duration of
unemployment; religiousness; frequency of church attendance; forms of
the faith in God; Self-assessment of the social class; union
membership; party preference; participation in elections; living
situation and living status; in some countries: ethnic membership of
the respondent.