DOI: 10.3886/icpsr29581.v1
title: Candidate Countries Eurobarometer 2003.5, November-December 2003: Identities and Values, Financial Services and Consumer Protection, and Time Use in the Countries Applying for European Union Membership
title: Version 1

description: The Candidate Countries Eurobarometer (CCEB) series, first conducted in 2001, gathers information from the countries applying to become members of the European Union (EU) in a way that allows direct comparison with the standard Eurobarometer series carried out in the existing EU countries. The CCEB provides decision-makers and the European public with opinion data on the similarities and differences between the EU and candidate countries. The CCEB continuously tracks support for EU membership in each country and records changes in attitudes related to European issues in the candidate countries. This round of the CCEB survey was conducted between November 20th and December 24th, 2003, in the 13 candidate countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey. This survey queried respondents on the following: (1) identities and values, (2) financial services and consumer protection, and (3) time use. For the first major area of focus, identities and values, respondents were asked to define what is most important to them, in addition to their personal values and those values which best represent their country, the EU, the United States, and the Arab world. Respondents provided their opinion on statements pertaining to socio-political issues, selected activities with which they were involved, and determined whether they would be willing to learn an additional foreign language and the main motivation for doing so. In addition, the survey asked respondents to identify which topics they were interested, including politics, economics, arts and culture, music, sports, and lifestyles, and to which countries they felt the closest. For the second major area of focus, financial services, respondents were queried on their top three financial priorities, their thoughts about finances and financial services, and ownership of a financial account, investment, or loan. The survey queried respondents about their use of the phone and the Internet in financial transactions, obtaining a financial account, investment, loan, or other service from the EU in the past, and whether they would consider doing so in the next five years. Additional questions asked respondents about the obstacles which prevent the use of financial services anywhere in the EU, the means of payment used and preferred for an important purchase, their use of an electronic purse, as well as their opinion on the ease of carrying out eight particular activities with the banks and insurance companies, and their expectations about the advice provided by their financial institutions. Finally, respondents were asked about the harmonization of their respective countries' consumer protection standards with the EU's standards. For the third major area of focus, time use, respondents were queried about the number of hours they or their partner spent on paid or voluntary work, child care and household tasks, and attending courses, studying or training. Respondents also answered questions on whether they plan to reduce the number of hours they work, what they intend to do with the extra free time, the preferred duration of the reduction of working hours, and how the reduction in hours would be executed. Respondents provided their opinions on work before retirement, and identified their expected and desired retirement age, work and monetary expectations, and future plans when considering retirement. Answers regarding respondent satisfaction with the hours they spend on life style, health, household, and family related activities were also recorded. The survey also asked respondents about their ability to participate in continuing education, whether they had completed a training course, the number of hours they were involved in for the last course taken, and as to who paid and whether they received time off for the course. In addition, respondents examined the importance and availability of employee benefits at work, whether they had taken any of these benefits in the past 12 months, their satisfaction with these benefits, as well as the ability to partake in employee benefits, and who should pay for these benefits. Respondents identified the activities that had the most impact on their time, their satisfaction with different aspects of life, and expressed their opinion on the importance of making money, working part-time, and stress at work. Finally, the survey queried respondents about whether they worked in the national government or in a state-owned or private company, and the number of children or grandchildren in the household and who takes care of these children. Demographic and other background information includes age, gender, nationality, marital status, age when stopped full-time education and level of education, occupation, whether income was paid by the state, left right political self-placement, vote intention, religious affiliation and participation, household composition, main income earner in household and this person's occupation, household income, type of community, and region of residence.
description: Please review the "Weighting Information" and "Technical Specifications" sections of the ICPSR codebook for this Eurobarometer study.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS1: Dataset
description: Candidate Countries Eurobarometer Survey Series
description: face-to-face interview 
The original data collection was carried out by The Gallup Organization Hungary on request of the European Commission.
The codebook and setup files for this collection contain characters with diacritical marks used in many European languages.
An issue with the 'SETTL' variable was found during ICPSR standard processing. The values for Turkey in this variable are exceptionally large (18 digits). Because SPSS and the other statistical software packages may not represent these values accurately, ICPSR has set these values to system missing. No information has been provided by the data producer for this variable. For researchers wishing to work with the 'SETTL' variable, a zipped package containing the original GESIS-submitted data (za4240.por) along with an ICPSR read me file (doc29581-0001_readme.txt) is being provided.
A split ballot was used for one or more questions in this survey. The variable UNIQID (or variables ID and COUNTRY) along with the Basic Questionnaire can be used to identify the separate groups.
The documentation and/or setup files may contain references to Northern Cyprus, but Northern Cyprus was not a participant in this wave of Eurobarometer surveys. This collection contains no data for Northern Cyprus.
description: Citizens of the EU aged 15 and over residing in the 13 countries applying for European Union membership: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey. There are two exceptions. In Estonia and Latvia, the survey covered permanent residents aged 15 and over. In Cyprus, the survey only covered the territory of the Republic of Cyprus. Smallest Geographic Unit: country
description: Multistage national probability sample