DOI: 10.3886/icpsr02831.v4
title: Eurobarometer 50.1: Information Society Services, Food Quality, the Family, and Aid to Development, November-December 1998
title: Version 4

description: This round of Eurobarometer surveys queried respondents on
 standard Eurobarometer measures such as public awareness of and
 attitudes toward the European Union (EU), and also focused on
 information society services, food quality, the family, and aid to
 developing countries. Those surveyed were asked if they used
 "information society" items such as satellite dishes, video recorders,
 computers, fax machines, fax modems, portable telephones, the
 Internet, pagers, and cable television, either at home for leisure or
 at work, and if they planned on purchasing such items. In addition,
 respondents were given several examples of services accessible through
 communication networks such as the Internet and television and asked
 if they would be interested in using these services. Examples included
 taking part in political debates with a politician, getting a doctor's
 advice on a health problem, planning a complete trip, reading
 newspapers, conducting job searches, and managing bank accounts. Food
 quality questions in this survey asked respondents how often their
 households purchased food items such as cheese, cooked meat, fruit,
 vegetables, honey, meat or poultry, pre-cooked meals, and beer. They
 were asked which was most important to take into account when buying
 the aforementioned products: the brand label, the quality label, the
 look of the product, the type of outlet where it was purchased, date
 stamps, or the product's traditional character. Respondents also
 defined their ideal for a quality food product. Other questions on
 this topic probed for respondent opinions on various product labels
 such as "designation of origin," "protected designation of origin,"
 and "protected geographical indication" labels. Respondents were asked
 if they had ever seen or heard of any of these labels, where they had
 seen them, and what the labels meant to them. The survey also
 addressed the topic of the family in detail. Respondents were asked to
 list factors that influenced the number of children that people might
 wish to have, and to comment on the main roles of family in society
 and whether they were in favor of or against marriage and why. Those
 queried were also asked what the government's top priority should be
 in order to improve family life. In addition, respondents were asked
 whether marriage or having children changed their lives at all, and
 which areas, such as child care, health care, education, and the
 environment, should be taken care of by the government, by private
 companies, or by associations. Another topic in the survey addressed
 aid to developing countries. Respondents answered questions on whether
 it was important to help the people in poor countries and which nation
 was in the best position to aid poor countries. They were asked if
 this aid should increase or decrease and whether development aid
 provided by the European Community contributed to solving problems
 such as drugs, overpopulation, immigration, environment and pollution,
 and trade development. Respondents in Italy were asked to rate Italy's
 economic efficiency, and to comment on Italy's commitment to the
 European Union, the reliability of Italy in business, and the main
 political and economic obstacles for Italy in taking a stronger role
 in the European Union. Demographic and other background information
 provided includes respondents' age, sex, nationality, marital status,
 and left-right political self-placement, as well as household income,
 number of people residing in the home, occupation, size of locality,
and region of residence.
description: Multistage national probability samples.
description: Datasets: 
DS1: Eurobarometer 50.1: Information Society Services, Food Quality, the Family, and Aid to Development, November-December 1998
description: Citizens of the EU aged 15 and over residing in the 15 EU
 member countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,
 Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain,
Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
description: face-to-face interview(1) The files included with this release of the
 collection derive from the data producer, INRA (International Research
 Associates) (Europe), and have been further processed by the
 Zentralarchiv (ZA). (2) The fieldwork dates in the study title
 (November-December 1998) are not consistent with the fieldwork dates
 provided by the data producer in the technical specifications attached
 to the questionnaire and with the fieldwork dates in the data
 file. Both these sources indicate that the study was done between
 October 29 and December 10, 1998. (3) One respondent (interview number
 70177) who answered "other countries" to the question about
 nationality (Q.1) was permitted to complete interviews. If desired,
 this case can be excluded from analysis. (4) D8/V685-V686: For 18
 respondents, the indicated age "when stopped full-time education" was
 too high for their actual age (D11/V688). These cases were recoded to
 '0' (NA) in V685 and V686. (5) The fieldwork dates in the data file
 for Sweden and Northern Ireland are not consistent with fieldwork
 dates provided by the International Research Associates (Europe) in
 the technical specification attached to the questionnaire. (6) The
 setup files contain references to Norway, but Norway was not a
 participant in this wave of Eurobarometer surveys and this collection
 contains no data for Norway. (7) Starting with Eurobarometer 34 and up
 to survey 61, NUTS 1 level data (REGION II) for the NETHERLANDS are
 not (re-)coded in accordance with the official EUROSTAT nomenclature
 of territorial unit statistics. The NUTS 2 level province ZEELAND
 should be coded as belonging to NUTS 1 region (landsdel) WEST instead
 of SOUTH Netherlands. (ZA editions will be corrected from EB 53
 onwards, November 11, 2005) (8) The SPSS, SAS, and setup files for
 this collection contain characters with diacritical marks used in many
 European languages. (9) C4/V771: System missing cases which indicate a
 current profession in D21A (V697) have been recoded accordingly. (10)
 D13/V692 (N OF CHILDREN UNDER 15 IN HH): For Sweden cases with system
 missing were recoded to '0' (NONE) since no other code was provided
 for this category, it should be read "NONE/NA" for Sweden. (11)
 D29/V714 (INCOME HH - SWEDEN): System missing (1 case) was recoded to
 '97' (REFUSAL). (12) D29 INCOME HH QUARTILES: Please notice that the
 income quartiles are produced for comparison purposes and are retained
 as provided by the principal investigator. They are based on the
country specific categorized income question.