Attitude to the Census (Panel: 3rd Wave, November 1987 - January 1988)

Attitude of the German population and of critics of the census to the
census after census day on 31 May 1987. Political attitudes.

Topics: political interest; satisfaction with democracy in the Federal
Republic; government orientation toward its own interests or public
interest; perceived protection of rights to freedom by the political
system and the current Federal Government; satisfaction with the job of
the Federal Government; attitude to the census; receipt of a written
request to fill out the questionnaire; intent to participate in the
census before start of counting; personal willingness to participate in
the census even given voluntary participation; assumed level of
non-participation in the census; attitude to the census in one´s circle
of friends and acquaintances; conversations about the census in social
surroundings after conclusion of the survey and time of last
conversation; knowledge about contents of the census survey;
additionally expected questions; questions that one would not gladly
answer; response or boycott behavior during the survey; attitude to
government statistics; attitude to punishment of census boycotters and
knowledge of cases of refusal; assumed willingness of the population to
participate as well as honesty of responses given voluntary
participation in the census; voluntarily providing selected personal
data; preference for census or providing data already available by
government offices; assumed benefit or damage from discussions about
the census in the media and reasons for this assessment; attitude to
earlier calls for boycott and to the time of survey; judgement on the
success of the boycott movement; attitude to selected arguments for and
against the census; benefit of a census; attitude to the obligation to
provide information; census boycott as protest against the government;
census participation as democratic duty; self-assessment on a
left-right continuum; assumed position of the majority of the
population on a left-right continuum; understanding of democracy and
comparison of this right with reality in the Federal Republic; party
preference; violation of fundamental rights by measures of authorities
perceived personally or by persons from social surroundings; attitude
to technology; perceived insecurity in contact with authorities and
attitude to government offices; concerns regarding misuse of personal
census data; trust in observance of data protection; attitude to
storage of personal data; importance of data protection; assumed
observance of data protection regulations; knowledge of cases of data
misuse and source of information about such violations; assumed
willingness to participate in a future census; attitude to opinion
polls (scale); willingness to participate in a microcensus survey;
willingness to provide information from one´s private sphere to
friends, neighbors, census bureaus and scientific surveys; attitude to
selected government statistics; willingness to respond in order to make
statistics possible; fear of data misuse; concerns regarding misuse of
personal data by selected institutions and government offices (scale);
attitude to selected illegal actions (scale); religiousness (scale);
attitude to questions of belief and the meaning of life (scale); belief
in supernatural, inexplicable events as well as horoscopes and
telepathy.

Demography: month of birth; year of birth; sex; religious
denomination; school education; employment; college in vicinity of
place of residence; students in residential area; possession of a
telephone.

Interviewer rating: presence of third persons during interview and
person desiring this presence; intervention of others in interview and
person causing the intervention; attitude to the census of other
persons present during interview; presence of further persons in other
rooms; reliability and willingness of respondent to cooperate.

Additionally encoded were: length of interview; date of interview;
identification of interviewer; sex of interviewer; age of interviewer.