Eurobarometer 76.2 (2011)

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. Employment and social policy, 2. Active aging.<br>Topics: 1. Employment and social policy: concerns about losing the job (respondent, respondent´s partner and children of the respondent); expected improvement in the labor market after the crisisin two years; knowledge of the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) and the European Social Fund (ESF); number of times the respondent has changed employer and years working for the current or last employer; most important skills to find a job easily; job security (short-term and long-term perspective); likelihood of finding a job (scale); type of job search in the case of dismissal; interest in self-employment; self-rated administrative procedures to start a business; assumed difficulties in establishing a business for selected types of people; estimated share of unemployment insurance; attitude towardschanges in the labor market (scale); preferred measure for job creation (scale); EU´s impact on national employment and social policies in general and in specifical areas; preferred action against undeclared work; participation in training courses; reasons for not taking part in further training; completed traineeship; traineeship as an entry into a job; employment after completed education; length of traineeship; traineeship funding; training and job search; career guidance receivedat school; desire for information about job qualifications and training for the future job market; impact of the economic crisis on social justice;the burden of public spending cuts and other austerity measures; groups of people that have been affected the most by public spending cuts; estimated trend level of poverty in the last 3 years; sufficient action against poverty; own experience of homelessness; reason for the situation.

2. Active aging: satisfaction with the own health, work, life in general, relationships and living conditions (scale); understanding of the terms young and old; self-rated age group; perception of people over 55 as positive or negative; actual and desired influence of people over 55 in politics, economy, community and family; full acceptance of people over 55, as workers, consumers, volunteers and financial supporter for their family; comparative characterization (image) of young workers and those over 55; expected development of the proportion of people aged 65 and over; concern about a possible increase in the proportion of people over 65; estimated maximum age for doing the own job; change jobs or stay in current job until the age of 65; preference for gender-specific retirement age; agreement with raising the retirement age by the year 2030; average years of retirement in the own country; adjustment of pension laws to family times; attitude to a general permission to continue working after reaching the official retirement age; own intention to continue working instead of board; introduction of a compulsory retirement age and subjective indication of that age; attraction of a combination of part-time work and partial pension; experience of discrimination due to old age; voluntary work for selected organisations; number of hours worked as a volunteer per month; reasons against voluntary work; personal support for people outside the household; characterisation of the country and the local area as “age-friendly”; improvements for an age-friendly local area; benefits of establishing a committee of older persons to advise the authorities; personalsupport for an older family member; useful measures of the government to help people who care for older family member; technology as an obstacle for older people; evaluation of selected institutions with regard to their treatment of older persons; change of life expectancy in the country in the last 30 years; expected change of life expectancy in the country in the next 30 years.

Demography: nationality; age; family situation; age at end of education; sex; occupation; type of community; household composition and household size; own a mobile phone and fixed (landline) phone; possession of durable goods; financial difficulties during the last year; self-rated social position (scale); internet use.

Also encoded was: date of interview; beginning of interview; interview; persons present during the interview; willingness to cooperate; region; language of the interview.