Eurobarometer 74.1 (AUG-SEP 2010)

Since the early 1970s the European Commission´s Standard & Special Eurobarometer are regularly monitoring the public opinion in the European Union member countries. Principal investigators are the Directorate-General Communication and on occasion other departments of the European Commission or the European Parliament. Over time, candidate and accession countries were included in the Standard Eurobarometer Series. Selected questions or modules may not have been surveyed in each sample. Please consult the basic questionnaire for more information on country filter instructions or other questionnaire routing filters. In this study the following modules are included: 1. Poverty and social exclusion, 2. Mobile phone use in other EU countries, 3. Financial and economic crisis, 4. International trade.<br>Topics: 1. Poverty and social exclusion: own life satisfaction (scale); satisfaction with family life, health, job satisfaction and satisfaction with standard of living (scale); personal definition of being poor; estimated spread of poverty in the own country; estimated proportion of poor in the total population; people who live in poverty in the own residential area; estimated increase of poverty: in the living area, in the own country, in the EU and in the world; reasons for poverty in general; social and individual causes of poverty; population group with the highest risk of poverty; absolutely neccessary long-lived assets for a minimum acceptable standard of living (heating facility, adequate housing, plenty of room to life and privacy, varied meals, repair or replacement of a refrigerator, an annual family vacation, medical care, dental care, access to banking services as well as to public transport, access to modern means of communication, to leisure and cultural events, electricity, gas and tap water); perceived impairments (deprivation) caused by poverty in the own country: access to decent housing, education, health care, regular meals, bank service, modern means of communication to the labor market, maintaining a network of friends and acquaintances, as well as the chance to start the own business; assessment of the financial situation and level of future generations compared to parents’ and grandparents’ generation; attitude towards poverty: the need for action by the government, too large income differences, duty of the government for the fair redistribution of wealth, more taxes for the rich, automatic reduction of poverty through economic growth, poverty will always exist, income inequality is necessary for economic development; perceived conflict groups: rich and poor, employers and workers, young and old, different racial and ethnic groups; general trust in people and trust in the parliament and the government (scale); trust in institutions in poverty reduction: EU, national government, local authorities, NGOs, religious institutions, private companies, citizens; causes of poverty in the own country: globalisation, low economic growth, profit motive, global financial system, politics, immigration, poor social system; primarily responsible for poverty reduction; importance of the role of the EU in combating poverty; prioritized policies of the state government to combat poverty; assessment of the effectiveness of public policies to reduce poverty; opinion on the extent of financial support for the poor; preference for state or private provision of jobs; attitude towards education fees; controlling for social spending; individual responsibility or responsibility of the government (welfare state) for the supply of citizens; attitude towards the minimum wage; optimistic about the future vs. personally perceived social exclusion; perceived difficulties to get access to financial services: bank account, bank card, credit card, consumer loans and a mortgage; personal risk of over-indebtedness; attitude towards loans: easy access to interest free loans for the poor, stronger verification of borrowers by credit institutions, easier access to start-up loans for unemployed, free financial advice for the poor, possibility for every individual to open a basic bank account; affordable housing in the residential environment; extent of homelessness in the residential environment and its recent change; reasonableness of the expenditure for the homeless by the national government and the local authorities; assumed reasons for homelessness: unemployment, no affordable housing, destruction of the living space by a natural disaster, indebtedness, illness, addiction to drugs or alcohol, family breakdown, loss of a close relative, mental health problems, lack of access to social services and support facilities, and lack of identification papers or free choice of this life; probability of own homelessness; personal charity actions to support poor people: monetary donations to charities, volunteer work in charities, help with recording in emergency shelters and with job search, giving clothes to poor people, buying papers sold by homeless people, food donations; difficulties of the household to make ends meet; ability of the household to finance the heating costs; opportunity for a week’s annual holiday, a meal with meat, chicken or fish every second day; livelihood with income; expected change of the financial situation of the household; assessment of potential difficulties in the next 12 months: rent, mortgage, consumer loan rates, utility bills, unexpected expense, food or other daily consumer items; job security; difficulties in fulfilling family responsibilities because of the workload; difficulties to concentrate at work due to family responsibilities; necessary very lowest net monthly income of the own household; household income (figure); self-rated economic situation of the household; utilization of social services: long-term care service, child care, public employment service, social housing services, social assistance; assessment of the quality and affordability of these social services; preferred dealing with old people who can no longer manage to live alone (elderly care): living with the children, regular visits by a child, care by public or private service providers, nursing home admission; best form of organization for childcare for children aged 0-3 and 3-6 years: preschool, home, certified child minding in a private home, by the parents or single parents, grandparents or other relatives; necessity of pre-school education; population group which should be prioritised in receiving social assistance and in the allocation of social housing; reasonable proportion of household income to pay for the care of one´s parents and children; responsibility for the provision of social services: public sector at national, regional or local level, the private sector or NGOs; assessment of quality of health services and the state pension system (scale).

2. Mobile phone use in other EU countries: own a mobile phone and fixed (landline) phone; private visits in another EU country; most used mobile phone communication services while abroad; individual increase in mobile usage while abroad over the last four years such as making voice calls, receiving voice calls and sending SMS; perceived decrease of cost of mobile phone services in other european countries; limitation of own mobile voice calls phones abroad becauce of the costs; assessment of the cost of surfing the Internet with a mobile phone while visiting another EU country.

3. Financial and economic crisis: key issues that should be given priority by the European Parliament; assessment of the impact of the current crisis on the world economy, the European economy, the economy of the own country and on the personal situation; personal impact of the crisis in terms of unemployment of the respondent, of a relative, a colleague or of the distant social environment; the euro has mitigated the negative effects of the crisis; European Member States have tended to act individually versus in a coordinated way to face the economic and financial crisis; preference for going it alone in the country; important actors to combat the crisis; preference for the reduction of public spending or measures to boost the economy; key actors for austerity measures; attitude towards financial support of another EU Member State by the own country; main reason for the support of a Member State; preferred support measures by the European Parliament to overcome the crisis; attitude towards a European economic governance, a European monetary fund, the introduction of a tax on financial transactions, financially penalization of EU Member States to force them to comply with EU rules on debt and public deficits, stricter regulation of financial market players, improving consultation between member countries and submission of national budgets to the EU -Commission; economic outlook.

4. International trade: influence of the country of origin on personal purchasing decisions of food, textiles, electrical equipment, motor vehicles and hi tech services such as mobile phone services provider; purchase of products and services from outside the European Union; willingness to pay more for products and services from companies that apply high social standards, that take environmental protection into account, which are from the own country and from developing countries; self-assessment of whether one benefits from global trade; reasons for this attitude; assessment of the EU and the development of international trade (scale) role; main priorities of European Union’ s trade policy.

Demography: nationality; age; left-right self-placement; marital status and family situation; age at end of education; sex; occupation; professional position; type of community; household composition and household size; own a mobile phone and fixed (landline) phone; possession of durable goods (entertainment electronics, internet connection, possession of a car, a flat/a house have finished paying for or still paying for); financial difficulties during the last year; self-rated social position (scale); internet use (at home, at work, at school).

Also encoded was: date of interview; beginning of interview; duration of interview; persons present during the interview; interview language; city size; region; weighting factor.