ALLBUS

The German General Social Survey (ALLBUS/GGSS - Die Allgemeine Bevölkerungsumfrage der Sozialwissenschaften) is a national data generation program in Germany, which is similar to the American General Social Survey (GSS). Its mission is to collect and disseminate high quality statistical surveys on attitudes, behavior, and social structure in Germany.

With the foundation of GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (formerly: "German Social Sciences Infrastructure Services" (Gesellschaft sozialwissenschaftlicher Infrastruktureinrichtungen)) in 1986, ALLBUS/GGSS has been included into the state-federal funding of this grouping. It is institutionalized as a joint-venture of GESIS at Mannheim (formerly: Centre for Survey Research and Methodology (ZUMA - Zentrum für Umfragen, Methoden und Analysen)) and GESIS at Cologne (formerly: Central Archive for Empirical Social Research (ZA - Zentralarchiv für Empirische Sozialforschung)). Since 2010 ALLBUS is an officially accredited Research Data Center of The German Data Forum (RatSWD).

Standardly, the representative cross-sectional studies are conducted biennially since 1980. A large part of the items included consists of replications, while others are specifically varied according to particular topics.

Until 1990, the individual surveys were conducted using a random sample of ca. 3000 German citizens from the old Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin who were residing in private households and were at least 18 years old at the time of the interview. In 1991 the universe sampled was extended to cover the former East Germany, and foreign residents are included in the samples.

Since 1986, the German part of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is regularly conducted as part of the ALLBUS/GGSS survey. As in GSS both national surveys can be analysed in a common data set.

The cumulative ALLBUS/GGSS 1980-2010 comprises opinion poll data from all of the 18 currently available ALLBUS/GGSS surveys, with a total of 54,243 respondents. It comprises all items that have been surveyed at least two times within the regular ALLBUS/GGSS program (replications).

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