Compliance and Usage in International Comparative Surveys: The Case of the Second Round of the Generations and Gender Survey

Olga Grunwald , NIDI
Aisling Connolly, NIDI
Thibaud Ritsenthaler, French Institute for Demographic Research (INED)
Arianna Caporali, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)

International surveys implement methodologies aimed at achieving comparable data across countries. These methodologies encompass the same questionnaires across countries and guidelines about data collection operations. National teams may adapt the questionnaires and guidelines to the national context. After fieldwork, data processing and documentation take into account these adaptations. However, differences across countries may remain. This paper examines the compliance to the baseline questionnaire in the second round of the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS-II) and whether it has improved compared to the first round of the data collection. The first round of the GGS (GGS-I) was run in 20 countries (Europe and beyond) and based on post hoc data harmonization, meaning that comparability mainly depended on data processing after fieldwork. With the start of the second round in 2020 (8 countries available as of November 2023), the GGP Central Coordination Office is directly involved in the preparation of national fieldwork and monitors survey operations. We examine compliance by analysing the extent to which the baseline questionnaire was fielded within each country. We then analyse whether compliance affects usage. This is captured through the number of times each country dataset is downloaded and used in publications. Finally, we compare the results with the compliance and usage in GGS-I, as it was analysed in a previous work. We expect that compliance will be greater in the second round and that it will affect usage. We conclude with recommendations for the management of international comparative surveys.

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 Presented in Session P3. Migration, Economics, Policies, History