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Generations and Gender Survey (GGS)
The Generations and Gender Survey collects data on family demographics, including relationships between parents and children (Generations) and relationships between women and men in partnerships (Gender). It provides insight into demographic behaviour and factors that influence this behaviour, including aspects such as employment, income, education, health, intentions and attitudes.
The GGS is an international comparative longitudinal study whose surveys are based on nationally representative samples from the participating countries. Respondents are interviewed three times at intervals of three years so that changes over time and across country contexts can be analysed.
The Generations and Gender Survey (GGS) is part of the Generations and Gender Programme (GGP) social science infrastructure. The aim of this programme is to provide researchers with up-to-date, internationally comparable family demographic data. The GGS surveys are its most important instrument for this. The GGP is coordinated by a team based at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI) in The Hague, in which the French Institut National d'Etudes Démographiques (INED) and the German BiB are involved as "nodes". This team coordinates the individual GGS surveys, cleans and prepares the data and makes it available to researchers free of charge via its internet portal. Further information on the infrastructure, the data and the application for use can be found at www.ggp-i.org.
The first round of GGS-I data collection was carried out in Germany for the first time in 2005 under the direction of the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB). From 2004-2012, the GGP collected data from over 200,000 people aged 18-79 from 19 different countries.
The new GGS-II round of data collection has been running since 2020. A new questionnaire was developed for this purpose, which combined the strengths of the GGS-I instrument with new multidisciplinary modules and in the design of which the BiB was involved. The GGS-II survey was accompanied by fresh sampling and innovations in the survey design, including the option of conducting interviews not only in person but also online. As the launch of GGS-II coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, this option was utilised in most countries. A methodological pilot study conducted in Germany, Croatia and Portugal in 2018, which the BiB was involved in planning and surveying, contributed to the design changes. By the end of 2024, around 20 countries had taken part in the GGS-II. The first repeat survey is expected to take place in most countries in 2024.
The German GGS-II is integrated into the survey programme "FReDA - The German Family Demography Panel Study". It is based on the FReDA survey waves 1 (2021), 4 (2024) and 7 (2027). A representative sample of the 18- to 49-year-old German resident population was surveyed for the first time in 2021. The interviews were only conducted in self-administered survey modes (due to the pandemic): predominantly online, in some cases also by means of paper questionnaires sent by post. Further information on FReDA can be found at www.freda-panel.de/EN/Startseite.html.