The eleventh meeting of the Consortium Board (CB) of the Generations and Gender Programme (GGP) took place in the premises of the General Administration of the Max Planck Society in Munich from 11 to 12 May 2005. Mr. John Hobcraft chaired the meeting.
Questionnaire Development Group 1 (QDG 1)
The Board endorsed the draft conceptual paper on the GGS Wave 1 questionnaire that was presented at the meeting. The document was seen as an important outcome of the GGP and as a reference material that helps promote the Programme.
Questionnaire Development Group 2 (QDG 2)
The CB re–confirmed the plan to include retrospective questions on economic activity in the Wave 2 questionnaire, because (1) retrospective data on activity would provide a lot of added value to the retrospective demographic data collected in Wave 1 and (2) the link between societal transition and changing demographic behaviour in the 1990’s in particular cannot be properly investigated without such data. It was acknowledged that in several earlier meetings the CB had endorsed the collection of retrospective data on economic activity in principle.
The discussion regarding the level of detail of the retrospective histories advocated collecting detailed and complete educational histories. The details should at least include the spell boundaries and the level of education attained. An additional argument emphasising the need for detailed activity histories was the need to be consistent with the retrospective questions on partnerships and childbearing that had already been designed for event–history analysis that requires information on spell boundaries. The questions pertaining to the time period between the waves should be detailed, while the information on the time before Wave 1 should collect minimal meaningful information that can be used in event history analyses of the interaction between the parallel careers of family and work.
Possibilities of using individual–level data from Wave 1 in tailoring the personal interviews of Wave 2 should be investigated. The inclusion of the Wave 1 information in the Wave 2 questionnaire could reduce the length of the interview and assist collection of information pertaining to the period between the waves. The investigation should reveal any legal obstacles to such use of the data in the participating countries.
Contextual Database Group (CDBG)
The Board approved the report on the progress of the CDBG. A suggestion for future work was to concentrate the effort on the Nordic countries where the registers are best suited for the envisaged data collection.
The contextual database should be promoted as the standardized database on population related issues and accessible to the broader group of interested individuals or organizations. Developing a contextual database also in countries that cannot field the GGS would add valuable information and help promote the GGP.
Administrative Records Group (ARG)
Norway remains the only country actively exploring the use of administrative records as a supplement to the GGS questionnaire. The Board suggested to compile an exhaustive list of countries that have a possibility to participate in the group.
Analysis Working Group (AWG)
The Board supported the preparation of the standard country tables. The standard tables should go beyond those used in the FFS since the GGP has more information available than the FFS. The tables should be published on the GGP web page. It was agreed that before publishing the tables they should be available for a critical mass of countries.
Fieldwork guidelines
Fieldwork guidelines prepared by the PAU were presented at the meeting. The document summarises best practices and provides recommendations for fieldwork activities. The Board endorsed the proposed draft of the fieldwork guidelines recommended the PAU to go ahead with completing this work.
Preparation of the 4th IWG meeting
Two sets of dates were proposed for the meeting: 2–4 October 2005 and 6–8 October 2005. Final dates and the place of venue should be known and finalized by the end of June at the latest.
Tentative topics to be discussed at the IWG include: country progress reports, fieldwork guidelines, conceptual paper on the GGS Wave 1 Questionnaire, report on the preparation of the GGS Wave 2 Questionnaire, report on the development of the GGP Contextual Database and its national implementation, report on the use of administrative records to supplement the GGS questionnaire, report on the preparation of standard tables and presentations of analyses based on GGS data. It was suggested that two research presentations should be prepared for the IWG meeting: one policy–oriented and one academic presentation.