International Social Survey Programme: Social Inequality IV - ISSP 2009

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>Importance of social background, merit, discrimination,
corruption and good relations as prerequisites for success in society
(wealthy family, well-educated parents, good education, ambitions, hard
working, knowing the right people, political connections, giving
bribes, person´s race and religion, gender); attitude towards equality
of educational opportunity in one´s country (corruption as criteria for
social mobility, only students from the best secondary schools have a
good chance to obtain a university education, only rich people can
afford the costs of attending university, same chances for everyone to
enter university, regardless of gender, ethnicity or social
background); opinion about own salary: actual occupational earning is
adequate; estimation of actual and reasonable earnings for occupational
groups: doctor, chairman of a large national corporation, shop
assistant, unskilled worker in a factory, cabinet minister in the
national government; income differences are too large in the
respondent´s country; responsibility of government to reduce income
differences; government should provide a decent standard of living for
the unemployed and spend less on benefits for poor people; demand for
higher taxes for people with high incomes; opinion on taxes for people
with high income; justification of better medical supply and better
education for people with higher income; perception of class conflicts
between social groups in the country (poor and rich people, working
class and middle class, management and workers, people at the top of
society and people at the bottom); self-assessment and assessment of
the family the respondent grew up in on a top-bottom-scale; social
position compared to father (social mobility); salary criteria (scale:
responsibility, education, needed support for family and children,
quality of job performance or hard work at the job); feeling of a just
payment; characterisation of the actual and the desired social system
of the country, measured by classification on pyramid diagrams (image
of society).

Demography: sex; age; marital status; steady life partner; years of
schooling; highest education level; country specific education and
degree; current employment status (respondent and partner); hours
worked weekly; occupation (ISCO 1988) (respondent and partner);
supervising function at work; working for private or public sector or
self-employed (respondent and partner); if self-employed: number of
employees; trade union membership; earnings of respondent (country
specific); family income (country specific); size of household;
household composition; party affiliation (left-right); country specific
party affiliation; participation in last election; religious
denomination; religious main groups; attendance of religious services;
self-placement on a top-bottom scale; region (country specific); size
of community (country specific); type of community: urban-rural area;
country of origin or ethnic group affiliation; occupation status and
profession of respondent´s father and mother during the youth of the
respondent (ISCO 88); number of books in the parental home during the
youth of the respondent (cultural resources); occupational status and
profession in the first job and the current job (ISCO 88 and working
type); self-assessment of the social class; estimated amount of family
wealth (monetary value of assets); work orientation:
self-characterisation at this time and in the youth of the respondent
concerning his performance at work respectively at school.

Additionally coded: administrative mode of data-collection; weighting
factor; case substitution.