DOI: 10.4232/1.10035
title: European Values Study 2008: Belgium (EVS 2008)
title: European Values Study 2008: Belgium (EVS 2008)

description: Two online overviews offer comprehensive metadata on the EVS datasets and variables.The extended study description for the EVS 2008 provides country-specificinformation on the origin and outcomes of the national surveys The variable overview of the four EVS waves 1981 1990 1999/2000 and 2008 allows for identifying country specific deviations in the question wording within and across the EVS waves.These overviews can be found at:Extended Study DescriptionVariable Overview Moral, religious, societal, political, work, and family values ofEuropeans.Topics: 1. Perceptions of life: importance of work, family, friendsand acquaintances, leisure time, politics and religion; frequency ofpolitical discussions with friends; happiness; self-assessment of ownhealth; memberships and unpaid work (volunteering) in: social welfareservices, religious or church organisations, education, or culturalactivities, labour unions, political parties, local political actions,human rights, environmental or peace movement, professionalassociations, youth work, sports clubs, women´s groups, voluntaryassociations concerned with health or other groups; tolerance towardsminorities (people with a criminal record, of a different race,left/right wing extremists, alcohol addicts, large families,emotionally unstable people, Muslims, immigrants, AIDS sufferers, drugaddicts, homosexuals, Jews, gypsies and Christians - social distance);trust in people; estimation of people´s fair and helpful behaviour;internal or external control; satisfaction with life.2. Work: reasons for people to live in need; importance of selectedaspects of occupational work; employment status; general worksatisfaction; freedom of decision-taking in the job; importance of work(work ethics, scale); important aspects of leisure time; attitudetowards following instructions at work without criticism (obediencework); give priority to nationals over foreigners as well as men overwomen in jobs.3. Religion: Individual or general clear guidelines for good and evil;religious denomination; current and former religious denomination;current frequency of church attendance and at the age of 12; importanceof religious celebration at birth, marriage, and funeral;self-assessment of religiousness; churches give adequate answers tomoral questions, problems of family life, spiritual needs and socialproblems of the country; belief in God, life after death, hell, heaven,sin and re-incarnation; personal God versus spirit or life force; ownway of connecting with the divine; interest in the sacred or thesupernatural; attitude towards the existence of one true religion;importance of God in one´s life (10-point-scale); experience of comfortand strength from religion and belief; moments of prayer andmeditation; frequency of prayers; belief in lucky charms or a talisman(10-point-scale); attitude towards the separation of church and state. 4. Family and marriage: most important criteria for a successfulmarriage (scale); attitude towards childcare (a child needs a home withfather and mother, a woman has to have children to be fulfilled,marriage is an out-dated institution, woman as a single-parent);attitude towards marriage, children, and traditional family structure(scale); attitude towards traditional understanding of one´s role ofman and woman in occupation and family (scale); attitude towards:respect and love for parents, parent´s responsibilities for theirchildren and the responsibility of adult children for their parentswhen they are in need of long-term care; importance of educationalgoals; attitude towards abortion.5. Politics and society: political interest; political participation;preference for individual freedom or social equality; self-assessmenton a left-right continuum (10-point-scale); self-responsibility orgovernmental provision; free decision of job-taking of the unemployedor no permission to refuse a job; advantage or harmfulness ofcompetition; liberty of firms or governmental control; equal incomes orincentives for individual efforts; attitude concerning capitalismversus government ownership; postmaterialism (scale); expectation offuture development (less emphasis on money and material possessions,greater respect for authority); trust in institutions; satisfactionwith democracy; assessment of the political system of the country asgood or bad (10-point-scale); preferred type of political system(strong leader, expert decisions, army should rule the country, ordemocracy); attitude towards democracy (scale).6. Moral attitudes (scale: claiming state benefits withoutentitlement, cheating on taxes, joyriding, taking soft drugs, lying,adultery, bribe money, homosexuality, abortion, divorce, euthanasia,suicide, corruption, paying cash, casual sex, avoiding fare on publictransport, prostitution, experiments with human embryos, geneticmanipulation of food, insemination or in-vitro fertilization and deathpenalty).7. National identity: geographical group the respondent feelsbelonging to (town, region of country, country, Europe, the world);citizenship; national pride; fears associated with the European Union(the loss of social security and national identity, growing expenditureof the own country, the loss of power in the world for one´s owncountry and the loss of jobs); attitude towards the enlargement of theEuropean Union (10-point-scale); voting intensions in the next electionand party preference; party that appeals most; preferred immigrantpolicy; opinion on terrorism; attitude towards immigrants and theircustoms and traditions (take jobs away, undermine a country´s culturallife, make crime problems worse, strain on country´s welfare system,threat to society, maintain distinct customs and traditions); feelinglike a stranger in one´s own country; too many immigrants; importantaspects of national identity (being born in the country, to respectcountry´s political institutions and laws, to have country´s ancestry,to speak the national language, to have lived for a long time in thecountry); interest in politics in the media; give authoritiesinformation to help justice versus stick to own affaires; closeness tofamily, neighbourhood, the people in the region, countrymen, Europeansand mankind; concerned about the living conditions of elderly people,unemployed, immigrants and sick or disabled people.8. Environment: attitude towards the environment (scale: readiness togive part of own income for the environment, overpopulation, disastrousconsequences from human interference with nature, human ingenuityremains earth fit to live in, the balance of nature is strong enough tocope with the impacts of modern industrial nations, humans were meantto rule over the rest of nature, an ecological catastrophe isinevitable).Demography: sex; age (year of birth); born in the country ofinterview; country of birth; year of immigration into the country;father and mother born in the country; country of birth of father andmother; current legal marital status; living together with the partnerbefore marriage or before the registration of partnership; livingtogether with a partner and living with a partner before; steadyrelationship; married to previous partner; living together withprevious partner before marriage; end of relationship; number ofchildren; year of birth of the first child; size and composition ofhousehold; experienced events: the death of a child, of father ormother, the divorce of a child, of the parents or of another relative;age of respondent when these events took place; age at completion ofeducation; highest educational level attained; employment status;employed or self-employed in the last job; profession (ISCO-88) andoccupational position; supervising function and span of control; sizeof company.Social origin and partner: respondent´s partner or spouse: partner wasborn in the country and partner´s country of birth; highest educationallevel; employment status of the partner; employment or self-employmentof the partner in his/her last job; partner´s profession (ISCO-88) andoccupational position; supervising function of the partner and span ofcontrol; unemployment and dependence on social-security of therespondent and his partner longer then three months in the last fiveyears; scale of household income; living together with parents when therespondent was 14 years old; highest educational level offather/mother; employment status of father/mother when the respondentwas 14 years old; profession of father/mother (ISCO-88) and kind ofwork; number of employees (size of business); supervising function andspan of control of father and mother; characterization of the parentswhen respondent was 14 years old (scale: liked to read books, discussedpolitics at home with their child, liked to follow the news, hadproblems making ends meet, had problems replacing broken things);region the respondent lived at the age of 14, present place ofresidence (postal code); size of town; region. Interviewer rating:respondent´s interest in the interview.Additionally encoded: interviewer number; date of the interview; totallength of the interview; time of the interview (start hour and startminute, end hour and end minute); language in which the interview wasconducted.Additional country specific variables are included in this nationaldataset.
description: Persons 18 years or older who are resident within private households, regardless of nationality and citizenship or language.