Download Swiss Household Panel User Guide (1999 - 2012)

- recontacting all SHP_I households that had refused to participate between 2000 and
2003, that is at waves 2, 3, 4 and 53;
- recontacting past “final refusal” households that participated again after being recontacted in 2006 and 2007;
- recontacting refusing SHP_I households in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 (waves 8 to
11);
- recontacting refusing SHP_II households in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 (waves
2 to 6 of SHP_II);
- follow-up of non-original sample members.
After wave 11 (2009), virtually all past “final refusals” had been contacted (and often interviewed) again. Since then, considering that we had somehow reconstituted some kind
of “original sample”, we defined five categories of “household level responses” for a given wave (wave t): “full response” (grid, household, at least one individual questionnaire),
“household level response” (grid and household questionnaires), “grid level response”
(grid questionnaire only), “non-contacted households” (blocked addresses), and “full
nonresponse”. On this basis, the follow-up rules are (wave t+1): we contact all “full response”; we contact all “household level response”, “grid level response”, and “noncontacted households” (but with a procedure of refusal conversion); we do not contact
“full nonresponse”. This system is being extended from year to year.
2.4 Questionnaires
2.4.1 Content of the questionnaires
The Living in Switzerland survey is a comprehensive survey. The questionnaires
(household and individual) cover a broad range of social fields and topics. They are also
designed to collect both „objective” (resources, social position, participation, etc.) and
„subjective” data (satisfaction, values, evaluation, etc.). The whole constitutes an operationalisation of the different elements of the microsocial level: living conditions, life
events, attitudes and perceptions, and lifestyles/ways of life (Budowski et al., 1998).
A household panel collects data at two levels: the household and the individual. In the
case of the SHP-survey, the questionnaire at the household level covers the following
areas:
1. composition of the household: containing basic information collected in the grid questionnaire about all the members of the household, such as age, sex, relations between
the members of the household, nationality, level of education and occupational status;
2. accommodation: containing „objective” elements, such as the type and size of the accommodation, home ownership or tenancy, the cost of and/or the subsidies received for
housing, as well as „subjective” elements, such as satisfaction with the accommodation,
evaluation of the state of the accommodation and assessment of perceived nuisances;
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Out of the 1,520 “asked again” SHP_I households in 2006 and 2007, 580 completed at least the grid interview.
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