The eight meeting of the Consortium Board was held from 7 to 8 August 2003 in Berlin (Germany) at Max Planck Institute for Human Development. Mr. John Hobcraft chaired the meeting.
Great countries’ participation in GGP
A general overview on countries’ participation in the GGP has been presented and reflected already at that time a very encouraging situation: 29 countries expressed great interest in the GGP, 10 of them have already established a national committee and 6 already got government’s funds and planed to field the first wave in 2004 or 2005.
Questionnaire Development Group 1 (QDG 1)
As to the Questionnaire, the Board agreed with a deadline of the 15th of September 2003 to finalize it and send it to non–QDG 1 CB members for final approval through e–mail messages by end of September.
The idea of the "cherry–picking module", which would allow countries to pick–up some questions in modules and not to use the whole module has been rejected because it will not allow comparative analysis. The Board decided to establish a QDG 2 to prepare the questionnaire for the second wave.
The board also discussed the urgent need of a list of definitions and concepts, which will allow a point of comparison for translation and should be available by mid–September 2003 and the interviewer’s manual itself by mid–October 2003.
Analysis Group (AG)
The Analysis Group met for the first time in Prague in February 2003 and decided to focus on what to propose for participating countries regarding country–level analysis of wave 1 date. It was stressed that the group needs to link data with the questionnaire and to balance questions on demographic behaviour with questions on consequences of demographic behaviour.
Study Design and Sampling Working Group (SDSWG)
The Study Design and Sampling Guidelines recommended longitudinal and cross–sectional representativity and the use of a list frame instead of an area frame and identified the next steps the Board will have to deal with in the near future: finalizing the sampling guidelines, including a discussion on sub-national or regional stratification, the use of area frame and the integration with other surveys. The group also emphasised the originality of the survey, which consists in knowing how a given event will change the living conditions of people.
Contextual Data Base Working Group (CDBWG)
The Contextual Data Base Group indicated that the coordination would be taken over by Martin Spielauer and proposed to develop a work programme to develop guidelines for the development of a national and sub–national contextual database, and to establish responsibilities for national data collection and regional coordination.