Eurobarometer 82.4 (2014)

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. Parlemeter 2014, 2. Autonomous systems, 3. Gender equality, 4. Smoking habits.<br>Topics: 1. Parlemeter 2014: institutions that best represent the EU; recent reception of media reports on the European Parliament; self-rated knowledge about the activities of the European Parliament; knowledge test on the EU: direct election of the members of the European Parliament (MEPs) by the citizens of each member state, joint determination of the EU budget by European Parliament and member states, joint agreements on laws on EU level by European Parliament and member states, equal number of MEPs of each member state; image of the European Parliament; seat allocation of the MEPs according to nationality or to political affinities; adoption of the European Parliament’s decisions according to: interests of the member states from which the MEPs are coming, political affinities of the MEPs, both; desired importance of the role of the European Parliament; preferred policies at EU level to be promoted by the European Parliament; prioritized values to be defended by the European Parliament; most important elements of the European identity; preference for enhancing common European policy in important areas on instigation of only some member states or by all of them (two speed Europe); assessment of the own country’s membership in the EU as a good thing; own voice counts in the EU and in the own country; expected benefits or worsening in selected areas from an assumed membership of the own country in the European Union: trade, employment, scientific research, foreign policy, education, agriculture, immigration, health, gender equality, environment and fight against climate change, industry, inflation and cost of living, energy, economy, protection of personal data; most often used media; most frequently used TV channels, radio stations, daily newspapers, and websites for the reception of news; assessment of the election of the European Commission and its president by the European Parliament on the basis of the results of the European elections as a progress for democracy within the EU.

2. Autonomous systems: personal idea of robots; use of robots at home or work; considerations to purchase robot for own home; attitude towards robots; assessment of the practicability of own current working tasks by robots in the future; approval of the following statements on robots: are a good thing for society, steal people’s jobs, are necessary for doing jobs that are too hard or too dangerous for humans, are a form of technology that requires careful management; discomfort with regard to selected tasks being done by robots: medical operations, assistance in working tasks, use in education, provision of services and companionship to elderly or infirm people; discomfort with regard to driverless cars: travelling in autonomous cars, transportation of goods in driverless commercial vehicles; awareness of civil drones; approval of selected statements on civil drones: are a threat to privacy, are an efficient way of transporting and delivering goods.

3. Gender equality: attitude towards the following statements: family life suffers when mother has full time job, women are less willing to make a career for themselves, men should work more in child care sectors, men are less competent to perform household tasks, father must put his career ahead of looking after his young child; extent of inequality between men and women in the own country and development compared to ten years ago; likeliness to experience inequalities in the own country with regard to men and to women as part of the following groups of people: young people, elderly people, people with disabilities, migrants, single parents, working parents with young children; prioritization of the fight against gender inequality within the EU; kinds of inequality to be treated most urgently; most effective ways to increase the number of women in the European labour market; associations with the phrase ´violence against women´; forms of violence against women to be tackled as a matter of priority; fields where to find highest extent of gender stereotypes; most important contributors in tackling gender inequality over the last ten years in Europe; attitude towards selected statements: gender equality as a fundamental right, gender equality will help women to become more economically independent, economy will grow due to more women on the labour market, gender equality as a precondition for a fairer society; preferred measures to increase the share of men’s caring activities.

4. Smoking habits: smoking status; age at starting smoking regularly; current or past consumption frequency of selected tobacco products: boxed cigarettes, hand-rolled cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos, pipe; daily consumption of cigarettes; importance of selected criteria for choosing the brand of cigarettes: price, packaging, taste, specific brand, specific flavours, levels of tar, nicotine, and carbon monoxide, cigarette design; aspects that can make a cigarette brand seem less harmful than others: menthol or other flavours, shape and size of a cigarette, tar and nicotine levels, colour of the cigarette pack, specific terms such as ´blue´ or ´nature´ in the brand name, absence of additives, labels like ´organic´ or ´natural´, shape or texture of the pack; consumption frequency of water pipe and oral tobacco; assessment of the harmfulness of electronic cigarettes; personal use of e-cigarettes or other electronic smoking devices; frequency of using nicotine free and nicotine containing electronic smoking devices; importance of selected criteria for choosing an electronic smoking device: price, packaging, taste, brand, type of device (disposable, rechargeable, refillable), nicotine, design, marketed health claims; importance of selected aspects with regard to using an electronic smoking device: ability to smoke in places where tobacco smoking is prohibited, wish to stop or reduce tobacco smoking, considering them attractive; impact of using electronic smoking devices on tobacco smoking; first used smoking product; presence of smokers at the last visit in a bar or a restaurant; duration of indoor tobacco exposure at the workplace (passive smoking); attempt to quit smoking; measures taken in order to quit smoking: nicotine replacement medications, support from health professionals, telephone quit line services, internet quit line services, alternative therapies, oral tobacco chewing or nasal tobacco, electronic smoking device, smokeless cigarettes, no assistance; attitude towards selected measures: banning tobacco advertising in shops, keeping tobacco products in shops out of sight, banning the sales of tobacco products via the internet, banning the use of e-cigarettes in environments where smoking is prohibited, banning flavours, packets without colours, logos, and advertising elements (plain packaging), increasing taxes on tobacco products, fight illicit trade of tobacco products; frequency of the perception of tobacco advertising in the past twelve months in the own country; places of advertisements; frequency of the perception of advertisements for electronic smoking devices in the past twelve months in the own country; places of advertisements.

Demography: nationality; left-right self-placement; marital status; age at end of education; sex; age; occupation; professional position; type of community; household composition and household size; own a mobile phone and fixed (landline) phone; financial difficulties during the last year; internet use (at home, at work, at school); self-reported belonging to the working class, the middle class or the upper class of society; life satisfaction; frequency of discussions about political matters on national, European, and local level; opinion leadership; image of the EU; general direction things are going in the own country and in the EU.

Additionally coded was: respondent ID; country; nation group; date of interview; time of the beginning of the interview; duration of the interview; number of persons present during the interview; respondent cooperation; size of locality; region; language of the interview; weighting factor.