Generations and Gender Programme
An Overview
Aat Liefbroer
Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute
Demographic challenges in an ageing Europe
• Financial and manpower aspects of the provision of care to
older adults
• Successful and active ageing
• Economic participation of women and pre-pensioners
• Realisation of fertility intentions
• Balancing work and family life
• Gender equality in household and childcare labour
Aim of the GGP
• To advance our knowledge about topics like fertility, workfamily balance and intergenerational exchanges that are
crucial in understanding the challenges of our ageing societies
• This is achieved by collecting internationally comparable data
on relationships between partners and between parents and
adult children across Western societies
• Main vehicle: Generations and Gender Survey (GGS)
Characteristics of the GGS
• Broad age-range (18-79), because understanding demographic ageing
asks for a focus on both young and old people
• Large-scale surveys on population challenges (N=5,000+) to allow indepth analysis
• Panel design to allow for better causal analysis and studying processes of
adaptation to change
• Cross-national to allow for examining the influence of the social context
(including the policy context)
• Theory-driven questionnaire design, including behavioural and attitudinal
information
• Contextual macro-level database to allow for multi-level analyses
GGS Topics
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Household (composition, organisation)
Children and fertility
Partnerships (history, quality, division of labour)
Parental background
Health and well-being
Activity, income and possessions of respondent and partner
Intergenerational support exchanges
Value orientations and attitudes
Participating countries
W2 W1
Completed
Pilot,
preparation
Committed,
fundraising
NNFP member
Historical development of GGP
• 1990’s: Fertility and Family Surveys coordinated by UNECE
• 1990’s: Informal Working Group on Population Ageing of
UNECE
• 2000: Initiative by UNECE to develop the Generations and
Gender Programme
• 2004: Launch of first survey
• 2008: Grant by EC DG-Research for a ‘Design Study for
Research Infrastructures’, covering 2009-2012
GGP Organisational structure
Strategic level
Advisory
Board
UNECE /
Network of
National Focal Points
Consortium Board
Project Manager
Executive level
Coordination Team
Operational level
WG
Coordinator
WG
Coordinator
WG
Coordinator
WG
Coordinator
WG
1
WG
2
WG
3
WG
4
Data
Preparation
&
Dissemination
Data
Collection
Methods
Measurement
Analysis
Methods
Members of Consortium Board
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Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NL)
Institut National d’Études Démographiques (FR)
Bocconi University (IT)
Statistics Norway (NO)
Demographic Research Institute (HU)
Norwegian Social Research (NO)
University of Ljubljana (SL)
Utrecht University (NL)
University of York (GB)
Max-Planck Institute for Demographic Research (DE)
Erasmus University Rotterdam (NL)
• Population Activities Unit of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (observer
status)
Use of GGP
• Three types of data dissemination
– Complete micro-datasets
– On-line data analysis by NESSTAR at www:/ggp-i.org
– Standard tables (under construction)
• Over 100 registered research projects using the microdatasets
• Use in FP7 projects:
– Reproductive decision-making in a micro-macro context (REPRO)
– How demographic changes shape intergenerational solidarity, wellbeing, and social integration: A multilinks framework (MULTILINKS)
Challenges for the future of the GGP
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Increasing the number of participating countries
Extending the data-collection beyond three waves
Streamlining data-collection across countries and in time
Questionnaire development: striking a balance between
continuity and innovation
• Reducing fieldwork costs: applying multi-method datacollection, evaluating sample size
• Highlighting our policy-relevance (targeted publications,
policy briefs, European Population Partnership)
• Becoming a recognized European Research Infrastructure
(ESFRI status)
Thank you for your attention!
Members of Advisory Board
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Peter Elias (University of Warwick)
Julius op de Beke (EC, DG Employment)
Gøsta Esping-Andersen (Pompa Fabreu University)
Irena Kotowska (Warsaw School of Economics)
Wolfgang Lutz (IIASA / VID)
Anne-Sophie Parent (NGO AGE)
Elizabeth Thomson (Stockholm University / University of
Wisconsin)
Provisional response rates wave 1
Country
Response rate
Rumania
84
Italy
79
Estonia
72
Georgia
68
Japan
61
France
56
Austria
56
Germany
55
Hungary
54
The Netherlands
45
Czech Republic
42
Russia
42