European Social Survey
European Social Survey (ESS) is an academically driven cross-national survey that studies people’s attitudes, values, and behaviors across different European countries. The survey was launched in 2001 and is conducted every two years through interviews or self-completed questionnaires. One of the main objectives of ESS is to provide data that measures changes and stability over time both within and between European countries, by examining aspects such as living conditions, social structure, and people’s opinions and attitudes.
As a research infrastructure, ESS was granted the status of European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC) in November 2013. The Swedish node of ESS is located at the Department of Sociology at Umeå University.
Access to Data
Data from ESS are published with open access and are available to download from the ESS data portal available on the ESS website.
From there, you can search for and download data, as well as analyze and create your own datasets from the various collections: European Social Survey, CRONOS, EOSC Future, and ESS Multilevel Data.
European Social Survey
The European Social Survey (ESS) is a pan-European research infrastructure providing freely accessible data for academics, policymakers, civil society and the wider public.
CRONOS webpanels
Since 2017, the European Social Survey ERIC has been developing a web panel for data collection.
The first pilot project, CRONOS (CROss-National Online Survey), tested the feasibility of recruiting participants from the ESS survey to a web questionnaire in three countries: the United Kingdom, Slovenia, and Estonia. Since then, the project has been further developed and implemented in more European countries, with the aim of testing the method’s effectiveness across additional nations and refining a sustainable model for future web-based surveys in Europe.
EOSC Future Science Project Climate Neutral and Smart Cities
Climate Neutral and Smart Cities is an EU-funded project that combines environmental data with people’s attitudes and behaviors for social science analysis. Researchers from SSHOC and ENVRI collaborate to develop new indicators and methods.
Environmental data from sources such as the European Environment Agency (EEA) has been integrated with data from the ESS for several metropolitan regions, and these can be accessed through the ESS data portal.
ESS Multilevel data
ESS Multilevel Data (ESS MD) is a tool that helps researchers analyze ESS respondents in relation to the societal context in which they live. It includes a selection of contextual data from various sources, based on the recommendations in the report from the ESS Upgrade and Planning Group on contextual data: “Conceptual and Statistical Issues in Multilevel Analysis.”
About the European Social Survey
The European Social Survey (ESS) is an international survey that studies people’s attitudes, values, and behaviors across different European countries. Every two years, a new round of the survey is conducted through interviews or self-completed questionnaires. The survey measures attitudes, values, and behavioral patterns among various population groups in more than thirty countries.
The main objectives of the ESS are to:
- Provide a research infrastructure offering high-quality data to measure change (and stability) over time within and between European countries regarding living conditions, social structure, public opinion, and attitudes;
- Apply and promote the highest scientific standards in international comparative research in the social sciences;
- Continuously develop the ESS infrastructure through methodological research and innovation;
- Enable training in the effective use of ESS data;
- Ensure visibility, accessibility, and dissemination of ESS data among social science researchers and other fields, policymakers, and the general public—both nationally and internationally.
Data from ESS are published with open access and can be reached from the ESS data portal available on the ESS website.
The Questionnaire
The ESS source questionnaire consists of a collection of questions divided into two main parts – a core module and a rotating module.
Up to ESS Round 7, the 21-item Human Values Scale and experimental tests were included in a supplementary questionnaire, which has now been integrated into the main survey.
Core module
ESS was originally designed as a time series to track changes in attitudes and values over time in Europe. Therefore, the questionnaire includes a core module with questions on topics of enduring interest to the social sciences, as well as a set of socio-structural (“background”) variables. The exact number of questions may vary between rounds, but each question has a unique variable name to facilitate working with data over time.
Themes included in the core module:
- Media use
- Health and well-being
- Trust in institutions and political governance
- Education and work
- Social trust and social capital
- Religion
- Household composition
- Civic engagement and democracy
- Social belonging
- Political engagement and political values
- Sociodemographic factors
- Migration and crime
- Human values
Rotating modules
Varje omgång undersökningen genomförs så ställs även frågor utifrån de två teman som valts ut som viktiga att fokusera mer på, det kan handla om ämnen som är aktuella i samhället och som behöver lyftas fram. Dessa teman väljs ut genom ett öppet ansökningsförfarande där sökande kan föreslå “nya” moduler eller “upprepade” moduler, vilket möjliggör jämförelser med tidigare ESS-omgångar. De teman som har ingått i en eller flera omgångar av ESS studien är:
For each round of the survey, additional questions are included based on two themes selected as important areas for deeper focus. These themes often address current societal issues that need to be highlighted. The themes are chosen through an open application process, where applicants can propose either “new” modules or “repeated” modules, enabling comparisons with previous ESS rounds.
Themes that have been included in one or more rounds of the ESS study are:
- Gender and gender equality
- Digital social contacts in work and family life
- Immigration
- Civic engagement
- Health and healthcare
- Economic morality
- Family, work, and well-being
- Life stages
- Personal and social well-being
- Welfare
- Aging
- Trust in the justice system, primarily police and courts
- Democracy
- Social inequality in health
- Climate change and energy supply
- Fairness and distribution in Europe
Supplementary questionnaire
The supplementary questionnaire is part of the core module. It is administered after the socio-demographic questions and the rotating modules and serves two purposes:
- To function as a tool for a well-established 21-item Human Values Scale, developed by Israeli psychologist Professor Shalom Schwartz
- To help evaluate the reliability and validity of questions in the main questionnaire using the Multi-Trait Multi-Method (MTMM) approach
Starting with ESS Round 8, all countries have administered the entire questionnaire through face-to-face interviews. In Rounds 1 to 7, the supplementary questionnaire was presented to respondents in three alternative ways:
- As a direct continuation of the face-to-face interview
- As a self-administered form while the interviewer was still present
- As a self-administered form returned by mail (or collected later by an interviewer)
National coordinator ESS Sweden
Mikael Hjerm, professor at the Department of Sociology, Umeå University
E-mail: mikael.hjerm@umu.se
