European Values Study 2008: Ireland (EVS 2008)

<font color=red>This survey is a not up-to-date version. Please, use the updated version included in the EVS integrated data files. This national dataset is only available for replication purposes and analysis with additional country-specific variables (see ´Further Remarks´). </font>

Two online overviews offer comprehensive metadata on the
EVS datasets and variables.

The extended study description for the EVS 2008 provides country-specific
information on the origin and outcomes of the national surveys The
variable overview of the four EVS waves 1981 1990 1999/2000 and 2008
allows for identifying country specific deviations in the question wording
within and across the EVS waves.

These overviews can be found at:
<a href=http://info1.gesis.org/EVS/Studies target=_blank>Extended Study Description </a>
<a href=http://info1.gesis.org/EVS/Variables target=_blank>Variable Overview </a>

Moral, religious, societal, political, work, and family values of
Europeans.

Topics: 1. Perceptions of life: importance of work, family, friends
and acquaintances, leisure time, politics and religion; frequency of
political discussions with friends; happiness; self-assessment of own
health; memberships and unpaid work (volunteering) in: social welfare
services, religious or church organisations, education, or cultural
activities, labour unions, political parties, local political actions,
human rights, environmental or peace movement, professional
associations, youth work, sports clubs, women´s groups, voluntary
associations concerned with health or other groups; tolerance towards
minorities (people with a criminal record, of a different race,
left/right wing extremists, alcohol addicts, large families,
emotionally unstable people, Muslims, immigrants, AIDS sufferers, drug
addicts, homosexuals, Jews, gypsies and Christians - social distance);
trust in people; estimation of people´s fair and helpful behaviour;
internal or external control; satisfaction with life.

2. Work: reasons for people to live in need; importance of selected
aspects of occupational work; employment status; general work
satisfaction; freedom of decision-taking in the job; importance of work
(work ethics, scale); important aspects of leisure time; attitude
towards following instructions at work without criticism (obedience
work); give priority to nationals over foreigners as well as men over
women in jobs.

3. Religion: Individual or general clear guidelines for good and evil;
religious denomination; current and former religious denomination;
current frequency of church attendance and at the age of 12; importance
of religious celebration at birth, marriage, and funeral;
self-assessment of religiousness; churches give adequate answers to
moral questions, problems of family life, spiritual needs and social
problems of the country; belief in God, life after death, hell, heaven,
sin and re-incarnation; personal God versus spirit or life force; own
way of connecting with the divine; interest in the sacred or the
supernatural; attitude towards the existence of one true religion;
importance of God in one´s life (10-point-scale); experience of comfort
and strength from religion and belief; moments of prayer and
meditation; frequency of prayers; belief in lucky charms or a talisman
(10-point-scale); attitude towards the separation of church and state.

4. Family and marriage: most important criteria for a successful
marriage (scale); attitude towards childcare (a child needs a home with
father and mother, a woman has to have children to be fulfilled,
marriage is an out-dated institution, woman as a single-parent);
attitude towards marriage, children, and traditional family structure
(scale); attitude towards traditional understanding of one´s role of
man and woman in occupation and family (scale); attitude towards:
respect and love for parents, parent´s responsibilities for their
children and the responsibility of adult children for their parents
when they are in need of long-term care; importance of educational
goals; attitude towards abortion.

5. Politics and society: political interest; political participation;
preference for individual freedom or social equality; self-assessment
on a left-right continuum (10-point-scale); self-responsibility or
governmental provision; free decision of job-taking of the unemployed
or no permission to refuse a job; advantage or harmfulness of
competition; liberty of firms or governmental control; equal incomes or
incentives for individual efforts; attitude concerning capitalism
versus government ownership; postmaterialism (scale); expectation of
future development (less emphasis on money and material possessions,
greater respect for authority); trust in institutions; satisfaction
with democracy; assessment of the political system of the country as
good or bad (10-point-scale); preferred type of political system
(strong leader, expert decisions, army should rule the country, or
democracy); attitude towards democracy (scale).

6. Moral attitudes (scale: claiming state benefits without
entitlement, cheating on taxes, joyriding, taking soft drugs, lying,
adultery, bribe money, homosexuality, abortion, divorce, euthanasia,
suicide, corruption, paying cash, casual sex, avoiding fare on public
transport, prostitution, experiments with human embryos, genetic
manipulation of food, insemination or in-vitro fertilization and death
penalty).

7. National identity: geographical group the respondent feels
belonging to (town, region of country, country, Europe, the world);
citizenship; national pride; fears associated with the European Union
(the loss of social security and national identity, growing expenditure
of the own country, the loss of power in the world for one´s own
country and the loss of jobs); attitude towards the enlargement of the
European Union (10-point-scale); voting intensions in the next election
and party preference; party that appeals most; preferred immigrant
policy; opinion on terrorism; attitude towards immigrants and their
customs and traditions (take jobs away, undermine a country´s cultural
life, make crime problems worse, strain on country´s welfare system,
threat to society, maintain distinct customs and traditions); feeling
like a stranger in one´s own country; too many immigrants; important
aspects of national identity (being born in the country, to respect
country´s political institutions and laws, to have country´s ancestry,
to speak the national language, to have lived for a long time in the
country); interest in politics in the media; give authorities
information to help justice versus stick to own affaires; closeness to
family, neighbourhood, the people in the region, countrymen, Europeans
and mankind; concerned about the living conditions of elderly people,
unemployed, immigrants and sick or disabled people.

8. Environment: attitude towards the environment (scale: readiness to
give part of own income for the environment, overpopulation, disastrous
consequences from human interference with nature, human ingenuity
remains earth fit to live in, the balance of nature is strong enough to
cope with the impacts of modern industrial nations, humans were meant
to rule over the rest of nature, an ecological catastrophe is
inevitable).

Demography: sex; age (year of birth); born in the country of
interview; country of birth; year of immigration into the country;
father and mother born in the country; country of birth of father and
mother; current legal marital status; living together with the partner
before marriage or before the registration of partnership; living
together with a partner and living with a partner before; steady
relationship; married to previous partner; living together with
previous partner before marriage; end of relationship; number of
children; year of birth of the first child; size and composition of
household; experienced events: the death of a child, of father or
mother, the divorce of a child, of the parents or of another relative;
age of respondent when these events took place; age at completion of
education; highest educational level attained; employment status;
employed or self-employed in the last job; profession (ISCO-88) and
occupational position; supervising function and span of control; size
of company.

Social origin and partner: respondent´s partner or spouse: partner was
born in the country and partner´s country of birth; highest educational
level; employment status of the partner; employment or self-employment
of the partner in his/her last job; partner´s profession (ISCO-88) and
occupational position; supervising function of the partner and span of
control; unemployment and dependence on social-security of the
respondent and his partner longer then three months in the last five
years; scale of household income; living together with parents when the
respondent was 14 years old; highest educational level of
father/mother; employment status of father/mother when the respondent
was 14 years old; profession of father/mother (ISCO-88) and kind of
work; number of employees (size of business); supervising function and
span of control of father and mother; characterization of the parents
when respondent was 14 years old (scale: liked to read books, discussed
politics at home with their child, liked to follow the news, had
problems making ends meet, had problems replacing broken things);
region the respondent lived at the age of 14, present place of
residence (postal code); size of town; region. Interviewer rating:
respondent´s interest in the interview.

Additionally encoded: interviewer number; date of the interview; total
length of the interview; time of the interview (start hour and start
minute, end hour and end minute); language in which the interview was
conducted.

Additional country specific variables are included in this national
dataset.