eurodata newsletter - mzes.uni-mannheim.de · eurodata newsletter no.2 feature: trade unions 3...

ISSN 0947-9260

EURODATA NewsletterNo. 2 Autumn 1995EURODATA Research Archive of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research

Bernhard Ebbinghaus

The Development of Trade Unions in WesternEurope: Global Convergence or Cross-national Di-versity?Trade unions play an important role in Western Europe. They have beensubject to, and agents of, social and political changes that reshaped thepost-war industrial society. In recent years, trade unions have been facingthe threat of membership decline and the challenges of global competitionand European economic integration. This poses the question whether un-ion movements are under pressure to adapt in a similar way or whetherthey differ in their responses. Do we find a trend towards global conver-gence or does cross-national diversity persist among union movements inWestern Europe? Drawing on comparative data from an international re-search project, we will provide a short portrait of the main patterns in un-ion density and organisational concentration. Instead of a general trendtoward convergence, we find signs of persisting diversity across WesternEurope in union responses to both social changes and global challenges.

Union Development in ComparisonTrade unions organising the collective interests of the dependent employedbelong to the major social institutions in modern industrial societies. To-day, when union movements come increasingly under pressure from social,economic and political changes at both national and global levels, it is timeto look at their long-term development. Such a comparative portrait of un-ion development in Western Europe shows common trends as well as per-sistent divisions. A comparison across countries and time reveals to whatextent union movements have been moulded by and tied to the nationalsociety, polity and market from which they emerged. The study of uniondevelopment is important for both assessing changes in industrial relationsand for a broader understanding of modern industrial societies.For a long-term analysis, however, we need comparative indicators of un-ion development which thus far have been difficult to collect for lack ofcomparable data. An international research project was organised at theMannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) with the collabo-ration of experts from a dozen Western European countries. The DUESproject, initiated by Peter Flora, was funded by Stiftung Volkswagenwerk, aGerman non-profit research foundation.One major aim was to create a comparative database where informationfrom official statistics, union sources and primary research would be col-lected. The main findings and statistics are to be published in the forth-coming handbook on The Development of Trade Unions in WesternEurope, edited by Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Jelle Visser (1996).

Data InfrastructureThe Need for Access toEuropean Microdataby F. Kraus.................................9

CEPS/INSTEADby G. Schaber ...........................12

The QUALIDATAResource Centreby L. Corti ................................14

Research InstitutesThe Robert Schuman Centreby Y. Mény & S. Towle.............16

Research Groups & ProjectsFamily Changes and FamilyPolicies in the Western Worldby T. Bahle ...............................18

SpecialThe 1990 Population Censusesin East and South-East Europeby F. Rothenbacher..................19

Country ProfileItalyby J. Schweikart .......................24

NEW SECTION:European Social Indicatorsby Franz Rothenbacher ...........21

NoticeboardPublications,Announcements ..26Conferences ..............................27About this Newsletter...............28

Editorial EURODATA Newsletter No.1

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... continued on page 2The database, which allows furtherand more detailed analysis, will bemade accessible to the academicpublic through the MZES researcharchive Eurodata upon publicationof the handbook.The project applied a comparativeapproach, indebted to the late SteinRokkan's macro-sociology of Euro-pean societies, that stresses thelong-term structural and historicalorigins of Europe's unity and diver-sity. A comparative and historicalperspective allows us to study un-ions in the broader context of social,political and economic changes andvariations over time and acrossWestern Europe. Following Rok-kan, we focus on Western Europeancountries that share long periods ofdemocratic stability, similar plural-ist institutions and cross-border fer-tilisation and thus make compari-sons fruitful.The project includes most countrieswithin the European Union (EU)and European Free Trade Associa-tion (EFTA) with few exceptions.Some Southern European, Northernand smaller countries (Greece,Portugal, Spain, Iceland, Luxem-bourg) have not been covered asthoroughly due to practical consid-erations or to the short period ofdemocracy in those countries. Weabstained from incorporating therecent surge of post-communist andfree union movements in EasternEurope for want of reliable infor-mation and because of the still em-bryonic formation process. We hopethat our project nevertheless en-courages similar endeavours re-garding these countries.

The Role and Strength ofUnionsHistorically, unions emerged as apart of a broad social movement,demanding political and industrialcitizenship rights for labour (Eb-binghaus 1995). With the rise oforganised labour, they became theprime representatives of workerinterests vis-à-vis employers and thestate. The societal role of organisedlabour was recognised in most

Western European countries by theend of the First World War whenuniversal suffrage, coalition rightsand collective bargaining were le-gally enshrined. The „institutionali-sation" of the class conflict wasfurther advanced with the enlarge-ment of the welfare states and fullemployment policies in post-warWestern Europe.With the post-war economicgrowth, organised labour gained inmembership and organisationalstrength in Western Europe, thoughthis varied significantly acrosscountries. Given the party-unionties that had historically emerged inmost countries, the union move-ment profited by and large from thepolitical alignment to labour par-ties, especially in countries wherethese parties were in power for alonger time. Moreover, in mostEuropean countries, unions play animportant role within the newlyinstitutionalised forms of socialconcertation, and they helped tobring about post-war social pactsthat have shaped the welfare statedevelopment until today.Whatever the institutional environ-ment and outside allied support, themain strength of union movementswas situated in their ability to mo-bilise members. Union membershipand density (the number of activemembers divided by the number ofthe dependent employed) are thuswidely regarded as principal indi-cators of union strength. Thesemeasures of the level of organisa-tion are important for evaluatingthe unions' claim of representativityand their potential capacity to mo-bilise financial resources and alsocollective action in industrial dis-putes.Yet the meaning of union member-ship varies over time and betweenunion movements. The degrees ofstability, ideological allegiance,financial commitment and personalsupport on the part of the membersdiverge considerably between un-ions. With professionalisation andbureaucratisation of most unions,the member-union ties changed

from previously informal ad hocsocial bonds to more formal bureau-cratic membership relations. Thisdevelopment had been advancedearlier and was more pervasive inNorthern than in Southern Europe.Although survey data is now avail-able for some countries for recentyears, we had to rely on union re-ports, and were thus dependent onthe accuracy of the unions' book-keeping. We attempted to makemembership figures comparable byextracting non-active members fromunion density calculations. Wherewe could not obtain internal infor-mation on non-active membershipfrom the unions, we applied "in-formed" estimates in order to cor-rect the otherwise inflated densityfigures.In addition to union membershiptrends, we should also considerother aspects, such as organisa-tional integration, the degree ofcentralisation and inclusiveness ofunion movements. For our shortoverview we will therefore look atthe main confederations, their num-ber of affiliates and their share inoverall membership ("associationalmonopoly") as measures of centrali-sation and comprehensiveness.These are crucial indicators forevaluating to what degree the repre-sentation of labour interests isfragmented, which is of importanceif one looks at organised labour'sunity vis-à-vis employers and thestate in both collective bargainingand pressure group politics.

The Global Rise and Diver-gence of UnionismSince their early formation prior tothe turn of the century, trade unionshave become a major social move-ment and labour market institution.With the rise of trade unionism, thelong-term increase in union mem-bership and the formation of large-scale national union movements,organised labour gained an impor-tant role as representative of labourinterests in politics and industrialrelations. During our century, theoverall level of unionisation in-

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creased considerably as unions be-came large mass organisations andrecognised collective bargainingpartners. The recent signs of a crisisin union membership have to beseen in a comparative and long-term context.The rise in the level of unionisation(see Graph 1) occurred in severalwaves which also mark the mainjunctures in labour history. After agradual take-off before the FirstWorld War, the end of the warbrought a major surge in mobilisa-tion as well as widespread unionrecognition. However, with the on-set of mass unemployment duringthe Great Depression, the unionmovements came under attack andlost many of their new members.Moreover, Fascist and authoritarianregimes banned free unionism inparts of Central and SouthernEurope.Only after the defeat of Fascism andthe end of the Second World War, anew boom in union membership

occurred. This was followed by anew wave after the "hot summers"of the late 1960s, particularly inItaly. Yet after the first oil crisis in1973 and the breakdown of full em-ployment regimes, the signs of un-ion decline loomed in most coun-tries.The new pressures since the 1970sled however to more diversity thanconvergence (see Graph 1). Thelevel of unionisation still showedtrends toward convergence until the1950s, when most countries seemedto follow a similar path. However,we have witnessed a remarkabledivergence in unionisation patternssince then. This contradicts theconvergence prediction of moderni-sation theory that implies that the"logic of capitalism" affects unionmovements similarly. Following theimmediate post-war period, whenall democratic Western Europeancountries enjoyed a boost in unionmembership, some movements have

continued to grow, while othershave shrunk ever since.In the post-war period, three clus-ters of countries - showing con-tinuing growth, fluctuating stability,or long-term decline - haveemerged (see Graph 2). Included inthe first group are Swedish, Danishand Belgian union movementswhich show remarkable long-termunion growth. All three are leadingthe top European ranks, partly dueto the unions' role in unemploymentinsurance that provides an incentivein times of unemployment.In the large "middle field" there arethe Norwegian, Austrian and Irishunion movements which haveachieved or maintained a mediumposition, while in Italy and theUnited Kingdom the unions haveexperienced considerable fluctua-tions around the average rate. Ger-many and Switzerland also haverelatively stable, but somewhatlower levels of unionisation. (Sincethe unification, the German DGB

Graph 1: Union Density (in %), Western Europe 1900-90

Feature: Trade Unions EURODATA Newsletter No.2

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has profited from the higher level ofunionisation in the East, althoughthe membership boost seems to re-cede again).The last group of "losers" is com-prised of the Dutch, French and(since the late 1970s) the Britishunion movement. They have wit-nessed a relatively severe member-ship decline, however, starting fromvery different peak levels. Like theFrench, the new Southern Europeanunion movements (Spain, Portugal,Greece) have a relatively low un-ionisation level and unstable mem-bership bonds since the democrati-sation in the late 1970s.

Social Changes and Union De-cline or Adaptation?Prima facie the signs of the "crisis"of trade unionism, in particular theloss in membership, could be attrib-uted to recent changes in the socialand economic structure of Westernsocieties. Some observers claim thata break with the post-war welfarestate and industrial relations regimeoccurred due to major politicalchanges in the national and inter-national environment. Indeed, adramatic decline in unionisation setin under the Reagan Administrationin the USA and the Thatcher gov-ernment in the UK. Moreover, otherunion movements experienced along-lasting downward trend overthe last two decades, most notablyin France, Italy, the Netherlands,and beyond Europe in Japan.Some observers pose the questionwhether union decline can be at-tributed to social changes and willthus also affect other countries.Major social changes that are oftenquoted are those from an industrialto a service economy, the shiftsfrom manual to white-collar work,increased female labour force par-ticipation, and a rise in the numberof part-time and flexible work con-tracts. These changes will lead to amore heterogeneous labour force.Female, part-time, white-collar orservice employees are often taken tobe less collectively oriented andthus more difficult to organise intrade unions. To the degree that all

societies are experiencing thesesecular social changes we wouldexpect them to be facing the samechallenges.However, we find that unions re-spond very differently to these so-cial changes, some being more ca-pable of adapting to the new situa-tion, others remaining inert andlocked into shrinking sectors. In-deed, the changing labour forcedoes not only have consequences forthe level of unionisation, but alsofor the internal unity of organisedlabour. Depending on the opennessof the established unions, these newsocial groups are more or less in-clined to join them; otherwise theymay form rival sectional unions.Both the level of unionisation andthe degree of integration within themain union movements varies con-siderably across Europe.There is evidence in several coun-tries that the rise of new socialgroups and female employmentdoes not always pose a problem forunion organisation. Traditionally,male industrial workers are thegroup most likely to organise incollective organisations. With therise of the welfare state, the unionmovements also made great inroadsinto the public service sector (seeVisser 1991). The Scandinavianunions were also successful in or-

ganising female and part-time em-ployees, as they tended to be em-ployed in the well-organised publicservice sector. As a consequence,nearly half of all union membersare female in Scandinavia, whereasin countries with late and still lowfemale labour force participation,like the Netherlands and Switzer-land, not even one in five unionmembers is a woman (see Table 1).Indeed, looking at membershiptrends and composition, we findthat the occupational transformationcontributed only partially to uniondecline. Employment shifts, incontrast to widespread believe, haveonly accounted for a small propor-tion of union decline over the lasttwo decades. A study prepared forthe OECD found that there is littlecorrelation between structural shiftsin employment measured at theone-digit sector level and thechanges in union density (Visser1991).Similarly, the argument that in-creased female labour force partici-pation has led to a decline in un-ionisation does not hold true. Inmost countries for which data isavailable union density rates forwomen have increased or remainedstable, whereas union decline wasmainly the result of a drop in maleunionisation (see Table 1). Cer-

Graph 2: Union Density (in %), Western Europe 1950, 1970, and 1990


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tainly, part-time employment insmall-sized non-organised firmsincreased along with female em-ployment over the last decades;however, the success of Scandina-vian unions shows that it is verywell possible to recruit thesegroups.Since the first oil crisis, the eco-nomic and political environmenthas certainly become more adverseto unions: long-term unemploy-ment, sluggish growth, an anti-union political climate and publicausterity policies (including privati-sation and pay-stops in the publicsector) have all prevented furtherunion expansion. While the begin-ning of an unemployment cycle mayhave a positive impact on member-ship recruitment, long-term unem-ployment is a drain on union mem-bership and financial mobilisation.However, where unions are in-volved in the administration of theunemployment insurance (Belgium,Denmark, Sweden), membershiphas remained stable. Yet this in-volvement may also constitute long-term financial strains on unions andincrease their dependency on statesubsidies. Again, we see that globaltrends induce diverse responses dueto cross-national differences in theinstitutional environments and also

in union strategies.

The Global and EuropeanChallengesIn all advanced economies, labourrelations have come under pressurein recent years as a result ofchanges in flexible production, em-ployer strategies to decentralise andderegulation policies by the nation-state and the EU. In addition tothese "global" challenges, the in-crease in economic and politicalintegration within the EuropeanUnion nurtured doubts amongstEuropean unionists as to whetherthe EU's "Social Dimension" will beable to guarantee basic social rightsfor Europe's workers. Some observ-ers predict a general convergence ora global crisis of European union-ism, while others claim that na-tional union movements differ sig-nificantly in past, current and futureresponses to these pressures.In the light of these challenges, wemay ask what the consequences ofunion diversity on European levelcoordination are. But we may alsoask whether these pressures have animpact that will lead towards con-vergence of European union move-ments. Thus a study of union devel-opment can provide some under-standing of the conditions for Euro-

pean unity amongst organised la-bour. If we take union density againas a measure of mobilisation, wecan make two observations con-cerning global trends and Europeanunion cooperation (see Table 2).First, the levels of unionisation andmembership stability remain muchhigher in Western Europe than forthe two other "global players" USAand Japan. In Japan, one in fouremployees is organised today, com-pared to one in three before the oilcrisis. The decline in union mem-bership is even greater in the USA,where the level of unionisationshrank from 30% (1970) to lessthan 15% (1992). On the otherhand, the level of unionisation wasalways higher and union declinewas in general less remarkable inWestern Europe as a whole withfew exceptions. In contrast to theweakened union movements of thetwo other global players, the West-ern European union movementshave become by and large an inte-gral part of Europe's social dimen-sion.Second, we have nevertheless toacknowledge that there is consider-able variation across Europe withimportant consequences for Euro-pean unity. The union movementsof the first Common Market coun-

Table 1: Union Density (in %) by Sector and Gender, Western Europe, 1970 and 1988/89

Total Manufacturing Financial serv-ices

Public services Males Females

Country 1970 1989 1970 1988 1970 1988 1970 1988 1970 1988 1970 1988

Austria 59 45 68 53 37 28 78 57 73 57 45 37

Belgium 46 56 60 95 20 23 .. .. .. .. .. ..

Denmark 60 b) 74 c) 80 100 c) 37 36 .. 70 .. 78 .. 72

France 21 10 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

Germany 33 32 36 d) 48 15 d) 17 61 45 42 47 15 22

Great Brit-ain

44 b) 39 52 41 21 25 60 55 54 44 29 33

Ireland 50 a) 47 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

Italy 33 35 40 47 33 22 47 54 .. .. .. ..

Netherlands 36 23 41 25 8 9 64 49 44 35 14 13

Norway 51 56 67 87 51 33 68 75 .. .. .. ..

Sweden 68 85 84 100 70 72 .. 81 77 82 54 88

Switzerland 31 26 27 34 26 14 75 d) 71 42 34 14 13

Source: Visser (1992): Tables 1.1 and 1.2. Notes: gross union densities; a) 1987; b) 1988; c) 1972; d) 1986; e) ..: data not avail-able.


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tries (Benelux, France, Germanyand Italy) had and still have me-dium to low levels of union densityand are in some cases politicallymore fragmented than the nextgroup that joined the EC in 1974(Britain, Ireland, Denmark) or theEFTA countries (of which somerecently joined the EU: Austria,Sweden, Finland).In contrast, the Southern Europeancountries as well as the new unionsin Eastern Europe show a muchlower capacity to mobilise member-ship and hold on to it. Thus, whilethe former more "narrow" economicblocs (Common Market vs. EFTA)also represented differences in un-ionisation, the enlarged EU encom-passes more diversity. The countrieswith strong union movements, suchas the Scandinavian countries, re-main in the minority within theEuropean Union, which explainssome of their reservations aboutEuropean integration.Both a global trend towards uniondecline and persistent diversity re-garding the level and pattern ofunionism could hamper the strengthand unity of labour at the Europeanlevel. Indeed, the major Europeanpeak organisation of labour, theEuropean Trade Union Confedera-tion (ETUC), founded in 1973, or-ganises more than forty nationalunion confederations from morethan twenty countries (Visser / Eb-binghaus 1992). The ETUC repre-

sents a multitude of unions fromsmall to large, from encompassingto sectionalist organisations, andalso a number of transnationalEuropean Industry Committees.Although the ETUC speaks for themajority of unions and the over-whelming share of all union mem-bers, it represents only one-third ofall dependent employed in WesternEurope (including even some coun-tries outside the EU).

Union Concentration or Or-ganisational Differentiation?Have unions become more alike dueto global challenges, even thoughthey differ regarding membershiptrends? An effort to concentrateforces seems to be a relatively ra-tional strategy given the more ad-verse economic and political situa-tion, the increased efforts necessaryto mobilise members and resources,and the need for transnational coor-dination. Yet, union movementsvary considerably as regards thedegree of centralisation, unity andinclusiveness (see Table 3). Again,many observers noted a post-wartrend toward concentration, thoughothers point out the crucial differ-ences in union systems acrossWestern Europe, especially withrespect to political and sectionalistsplits.In several continental countries wefind politically divided unionmovements with a schism along

religious-secular lines (Belgium,Netherlands, Switzerland) or Com-munist-religious lines (France, It-aly). The unitary German DGB andAustrian ÖGB, however, have suc-ceeded in overcoming the pre-warschism due to particular historicalcircumstances. Later efforts to unitethe already entrenched rival unionselsewhere have had only partial ortemporary success (Dutch FNVmerger and the Italian efforts to aCGIL-CISL-UIL federation in thelate 1970s).In Scandinavia as well as in somecontinental European countries wefind different (largely non-political)cleavages that lead to independentpeak associations. They distancethemselves from industrial manualworker unionism, which tends toalign themselves with the alliedlabour party. In these countries, anumber of white-collar unions, civilservice organisations, and / or pro-fessional associations founded theirown peak organisations (most nota-bly: Danish FTF, German DBB,Dutch MHP and AC, Swedish TCOand SACO, Swiss VSA). The Brit-ish and Irish union confederationshave no direct rival peak organisa-tion; however, some individual un-ions have abstained from politicalalignment with the Labour Partyand / or affiliation with TUC andITUC respectively.A cursory look at the main confed-erations, their number of unionsand shares in overall membership("associational monopoly") revealsparamount diversity. While thereseems to be a general trend towardsconcentration regarding the numberof unions, we still find considerablevariation and exceptions. In a num-ber of countries we find a multitudeof unions divided by political ori-entation (France, Italy) or organisa-tional principle (Britain, Ireland),and in others a more rationalisedsystem with few unitary industrialor inclusive unions (above all: Aus-tria and Germany).The relative decline in union frag-mentation is most striking in theUnited Kingdom with its over 700unions (nearly 200 affiliates within

Table 2: Union Density (in %) in Western Europe, USA and Japan,1970-89

Regional bloc 1970 1975 1980 1985 1989

EC-6 32 37 36 34 30

EC-9 36 41 41 38 34

EC-12 .. 40 40 36 33

EFTA 54 58 60 60 59

W. Europe 38 43 44 40 38

USA 30 25 23 18 16

Japan 35 34 31 29 26

Source: Visser / Ebbinghaus (1992): Table 7.1. Notes: EC-6: Benelux, France,Germany and Italy; EC-9: plus Denmark, Ireland, UK; EC-12: plus Greece, Portu-gal and Spain; EFTA: Austria, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland;W. Europe: EC-12 and EFTA.


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TUC) around 1950. The number ofunions has been cut considerablywithin the TUC and in general.This was partly the result of severalmerger waves leading to larger un-ions but not necessarily to industrialunions as in Germany or Sweden.Also in Denmark, Ireland, theNetherlands and Sweden, all ofthem countries with more than 100unions in 1950, concentrationwaves occurred during the last dec-ades, particularly within the majorunion confederations. Yet in somecases, sectionalist unions mush-roomed as a counter-reaction to thesolidaristic „inclusive“ unionism inGermany, the Netherlands, Norway(note also the rise of „autonomous“unions in France and Italy).The question remains open to whatdegree the concentration waveshave led to a decline in union frag-mentation and the integration ofsectional interests within encom-passing non-rival unions. The indi-cator of "associational monopoly", apeak association's share in overallunion membership, provides ahandy measure of the representativ-ity of a union confederation.The unitary union movements(Austrian ÖGB and German DGB)and the British and Irish unionconfederations (TUC, ITUC) haveachieved by and large a high levelof associational monopoly. To thedegree that they decided not to, orwere less able to, organise non-manual employees, the Scandina-vian LOs, but also the Swiss SGB,witnessed a decline of their initiallydominant majority, as white-collarunionism increased outside theirown ranks.The Belgian union movement isoutstanding due to the fact that theCatholic union confederation (CSC)became the largest Christian unionmovement in Europe. The neigh-bouring Dutch catholic unionmovement (NKV), after facing de-cline, merged with the Socialistunions (NVV) to form a unitaryunion centre (FNV) two decadesago. The other politically dividedunion movements, the two Commu-

Table 3: Number of Unions and Associational Monopoly (in %) by MajorUnion Confederations, Western Europe, 1950, 1970 and 1990

Countryand

Number of unions Associational Monopoly (in%)

Confedera-tion

1950 1970 1990 1950 1970 1990

Austria ÖGB 16 16 15 100.0 100.0 100.0Belgium 35 34 37 FGTB 17 14 12 47.6 43.4 39.1 CSC 17 19 24 45.5 50.0 52.0 CGSLB 1 1 1 6.9 6.6 8.9Denmark a) ~133 ~140 ~115 LO i D a) 68 52 29 a) 82.0 78.1 69.5 FTF a) 22 49 47 a) 7.1 15.0 15.8 others a) ~43 ~39 ~39 a) 10.9 6.9 14.7Germany ~40 ~90 ~140 DGB 16 16 16 91.0 81.4 81.1 DBB 13 27 34 3.0 8.7 8.2 CGB 1 13 17 0.0 2.3 3.2 others ~10 ~34 ~73 6.0 7.6 7.5France .. .. .. CGT .. .. .. 75.6 50.3 30.1 FO .. .. .. 9.1 16.6 20.1 CFDT .. .. .. 8.6 16.3 21.5Ireland 111 115 b) 81 ICTU [68] 75 b) 58 92.2 92.4 b) 90.9 others 43 40 b) 23 7.8 7.6 b) 9.1Italy c) ~103 ~72 CGIL c) 31 20 81.7 c) 53.3 51.0 CISL c) 39 22 18.3 c) 33.5 34.6 UIL c) 33 30 .. c) 13.3 14.4Netherlands 354 269 232 FNV(NVV)

32 17 17 33.4 39.2 62.4

NKV 25 18 >FNV 25.6 25.6 >FNV CNV 25 22 13 13.7 15.3 19.0 MHP 37 69 86 0.5 2.0 7.6 AC 50 45 55 1.8 2.5 6.5 others 185 98 61 25.0 15.4 4.5Norway 78 169 156 LO i N 41 40 29 83.6 76.3 59.8 others 37 129 127 16.4 23.7 40.2Sweden 189 108 71 LO 44 29 23 77.8 66.3 57.9 TCO 42 23 20 16.9 28.3 33.8 SACO [58] 48 24 2.2 3.9 7.7 others 45 8 4 3.1 1.5 0.6Switzerland 73 70 73 SGB 15 15 16 58.3 51.8 48.9 CNG 9 11 12 7.0 11.0 12.6 VSA 8 11 9 12.5 15.7 15.6 others 41 33 36 22.2 21.5 22.9U.K. 732 543 287 TUC 186 142 74 83.4 89.4 82.4 others 546 401 213 15.7 10.6 17.6

Source: Ebbinghaus / Visser (1996): Country Tables 8, 10 and 17.Notes: a) 1952; b) 1988; c) 1977; ..: data not available; ~: estimated; [ ]: sum ofconfederations that later merged; >FNV: NVV and NKV merged to form FNV.


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nist union movements, experienceda more dramatic decline (France) ora more gradual balancing out (It-aly), though taking very differentideological routes.Although we are witnessing someoverall concentration and a declinein political schism as well as at-tempts towards European coopera-tion, these changes have not elimi-nated union diversity. Instead, un-ion diversity seems to be renewedacross Europe. Some political unionmovements, such as the Belgiancatholic unions, have fared verywell, while others like the inertFrench Communists retreated totheir shrinking strongholds.Union movements thus vary acrossEurope most notably in terms oftheir capacity to integrate the moreheterogeneous interests of today'smodern society within their ownranks. Both the disparate member-ship developments and the diversepatterns of concentration and repre-sentation show major differencesacross countries. Rather than find-ing indications for a trend towardglobal convergence, cross-nationalcomparisons indicate that there aremany signs of a renewed diversityin labour's organisational strengthand unity.

NotesGraphs: Union density figures be-fore 1945 (union membership inpercent of dependent labour force)are taken from Visser 1989 andupdated database; since 1945 fig-ures are net union density rates(without pensioners and other non-active members), taken from the

DUES database (see Ebbinghaus /Visser 1996: Country Tables 13 and14). For further notes on methodol-ogy see Visser (1989, 1991). Table1 and 2: Union gross density fig-ures (including non-active mem-bers) see notes to tables. Table 3:The number of unions (includingindependent local unions) havebeen compiled from the DUES da-tabase (see Ebbinghaus / Visser1996: Country Tables 8). Associa-tional monopoly (share of confed-eration in overall membership) iscalculated from Ebbinghaus / Visser(1996): Country Tables 10 and 17.

BibliographyEbbinghaus, Bernhard (1995): "TheSiamese Twins: Citizenship Rights,Cleavage Formation, and Party-Union Relations in WesternEurope", in: Ch. Tilly (ed.): Citi-zenship, Identity, and Social His-tory, Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press (forthcoming).Ebbinghaus, Bernhard / Visser,Jelle (1996): The Development ofTrade Unions in Western Europe,1945-92 (forthcoming).Visser, Jelle (1989): EuropeanTrade Unions in Figures, Deventer:Kluwer.Visser, Jelle (1991): "Trends inTrade Union Membership", Ch. 4,pp. 97-134, OECD EmploymentOutlook 1991, Paris: OECD.Visser, Jelle (1992): "The Strengthof Union Movements in AdvancedCapitalist Democracies: Social andOrganizational Variations", pp. 17-52, in: M. Regini (ed.): The Future

of Labour Movements, London:Sage.Visser, Jelle / Ebbinghaus, Bern-hard (1992): "Making the Most ofDiversity? European Integrationand Transnational Organization ofLabour", pp. 206-237, in: J.Greenwood / J. Grote / K. Ronit(eds.), Organized Interests and theEuropean Community, London:Sage.

Bernhard Ebbinghaus is assistantprofessor in sociology at the Uni-versity of Mannheim and associatedresearcher at the MZES. He coor-dinates the database and co-editsthe data handbook of the DUESproject together with Jelle Visser(University of Amsterdam).

The Development of Trade Unionsin Western Europe, 1945-92.A Data HandbookIf you are interested in being noti-fied upon publication of the hand-book, please send a short note (RE:"DUES Data Handbook") with yourname and the address of your insti-tution to:E-mail:[email protected]

or via mail:DUES-Project,MZES / Eurodata,University of Mannheim,D-68131 Mannheim, Germanyor via fax:+49-621-292-8435

EURODATA Newsletter No.2 Data Infrastructure

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Microdata from governmentagencies and academic researchCross-national comparative analysisbased on microdata gained impor-tance with the availability of theEuropean Communities’ Euro-barometer survey data and theirdistribution within the ICPSR. Thesuccess of comparative academicresearch, e.g. Inglehart’s work onpost-materialism, clearly demon-strated the research potential ofcomparative microdata. In additionto that, official statistics in Europehave gradually shifted from usingadministrative data to using surveydata since the late 1950s. Familybudget surveys, level of living resp.quality of life surveys, and, aboveall, labour force surveys were car-ried out in most European countries(ILO 1992, 1990; Flora et al 1994).It was particularly the Labour ForceSurvey with its comparatively highstandardisation and large samplesize as well as its wide and earlydiffusion in Europe that offeredenormous research possibilities forcomparative social research fromthe very beginning. Surprisinglyenough, comparative research didnot really welcome these new possi-bilities. There were many reasonsfor the disparity between researchpotential and actual recipiencewithin the scientific community, butaccess to data was certainly a majorpoint. Keeping in mind the linguis-tic and cultural fragmentation ofEurope, it seems reasonable to sup-pose that the scientific community

simply could not manage the ex-ploitation of these sources for com-parative research without properinfrastructural services. And aservice institution with a compara-tive orientation that could take careof these microdata did not exist.With the gradual diffusion of na-tional social science data services inthe 1980s, the academic communitymade new efforts to establish cross-national microdatabases of its own(such as the International SocialSurvey Program or the World ValueSurvey). The utilisation of surveysfrom official statistics for compara-tive purposes actually began withthe foundation of the LuxembourgIncome Study (LIS) during the1980s (cf. the contribution of Gas-ton Schaber in this newsletter).Earlier efforts at the University ofMannheim to establish a compara-tive microdata archive containinglabour force surveys (W. Müller)could not be institutionalised.Again, the tremendous success ofthe European study group on socialmobility and of LIS also in terms ofsubstantive research results clearlydemonstrates the great researchpotential inherent in microdatafrom official statistics.

Official microdata as a prerequi-site for comparative research onEuropeAccess to microdata is the prerequi-site for an efficient use of the un-precedented wealth of official sta-

tistics in comparative research for atleast two reasons:• Firstly, in-depth analyses of

social processes can only becarried out if data are availableat the level of individuals. Theidentification of social patternsrequires the identification ofgroup-specific behaviour,which implies prior analysis ofbehaviour at the level of indi-viduals. In order to exploit thepotential of these data, ad-vanced techniques of multivari-ate analysis have to be applied.These techniques operate, how-ever, at the level of individualdata. The state of the art is mi-crodata analysis. It would infact be difficult to find a lead-ing researcher in the social sci-ences who would object to theview that nowadays the bestand most useful way to analysedata is to do it at the level ofthe individual sample unit.

• Secondly, even researchers whoare only interested in compara-tive analysis at the macro-levelneed in many cases access tomicrodata. Data tables in publi-cations tend to vary over timeand across countries. Publicdatabases are frequently limitedto standard tables which natu-rally vary across nations. Inter-national statistics, offered byinternational organisations, arevaluable sources for many pur-poses. But if in-depth analysisis required, the available tablesoften lack sufficient detail, afact which even applies to thevoluminous macrolevel data-bases of the Statistical Office ofthe European Communities.

There are many unexplored fields ofresearch that require our attention.Many of the questions that havebeen studied so far within a nationalcontext must become the object ofresearch at the European level. Re-search on Europe is evidently a taskof much higher complexity. If wewant to understand the difficultiesand the problems encountered inthe process of integration properly,we have to come to a more inte-

Franz Kraus

The Need for Access to European MicrodataMicrodata have been a major source for empirical social research sincethe 1960s at least. Most of this research focused on national aspects,however. The development of appropriate methodological tools andanalysis techniques was a major issue. Applied social research very of-ten meant applying modern tools to readily available survey data. InEurope, for a long time working with microdata meant having to makea secondary analysis of data produced by commercial market researchorganisations or conducting and analysing small-scale academic sur-veys. In either case, time and space did not play a significant role.Cross-national analysis was mainly limited to the analysis of aggregatedata from official statistics. Important cross-national data collectionswere produced at that time, such as Arthur Bank’s ‘Cross-NationalTime Series Data Archive’, or Taylor and Hudson’s ‘World Handbookof Political and Social Indicators, to mention only a few.

Data Infrastructure EURODATA Newsletter No.2

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grated knowledge of the economic,social and political pathways in thehistory of the countries, in theirpresent developments and theirlikely futures. The many complexinterdependencies between existingstructures, politics and social be-haviour need to be researched at theEuropean level, and often alsowithin the world system. Labourmarkets and the welfare state arecertainly crucial areas regardingbasic as well as applied research.We need to clarify the structuresand dynamics of both employmentand unemployment across occupa-tions, gender, industries and educa-tional categories at the level of re-gions. We need a better under-standing of the individuals’ labourmarket behaviour from the perspec-tive of the family. We need moreresearch on the behaviour of vul-nerable groups. We need morecomprehensive and systematic re-search on the interrelationship be-tween economic growth and socialdifferentiation. How do family typesand forms, life courses and lifestyles differ from country to coun-try, what will be their likely futurecourses, and what will be the con-sequences regarding social integra-tion? These are just a few andsketchy examples. The numerousworking papers and research mono-graphs produced by the LIS re-search network provide many addi-tional examples, and show thatcomparative social research can behighly relevant for political decisionmakers as well. It is clear, however,that LIS and the academic micro-databases briefly mentioned abovedo not suffice to study the evolutionof a European society in a thoroughand comprehensive way.The research agenda, set out in theworking programme of TSER (aresearch programme of the Euro-pean Commission), confirms thatin-depth analyses on social changeand integration in Europe cannot becarried out without analyses of in-dividual data. This does certainlynot only hold for policy-orientedanalysis, but is generally valid.Given the relatively large sample

size of official surveys, their highdegree of comparability and therepetitiousness of measurement,academic surveys cannot be a sub-stitute. For all these reasons, itwould be an incredible waste ofpublic resources, if there was noguarantee that data collected bystatistical agencies could readily bemade available in the form of mi-crodata for research purposes.

Conditions of access to microdatain EuropeIn many countries there is someform of gaining access to officialmicrodata. Legislation (de Guchte-naire/Mochmann 1990) and proce-dures, however, vary greatly fromcountry to country as well as interms of statistical sources. Ac-cording to a recent survey of na-tional statistical institutes in West-ern Europe, conducted by the DutchStatistical Office (Cittuer and Wil-lenborg 1991), only two countries,namely France and Great Britain,offer access via public use files.Meanwhile the Italian StatisticalOffice also offers public use files,and the Anglo-Saxon overseacountries offer them as well (Mülleret al 1991).In a number of European countries(such as Austria, Denmark, Fin-land, Germany, Hungary, Norway,Poland, Portugal, Spain and Swit-zerland), access to national micro-data is granted for scientific pur-poses via individual, special con-tracts. There is great variation,however, with respect to sources forwhich access is granted as well asthe forms of access. Some countries,e.g. Denmark and regarding somesources Germany as well, only al-low remote processing, others dis-seminate data for local use, e.g.Switzerland. More important thandifferences between forms of accessare differences with respect to sta-tistical sources that can be accessed.Only a few countries, includingonce more France and Britain, al-low access to population censuses.Considering its extremely highvalue for comparative research, it isobvious that comparative research

cannot exploit the full potential ofofficial statistics, not even in thosecountries where access to microdatais granted in principle. Neverthe-less, these countries are, of course,have taken the right way.For Europe as a whole, however,the problem of how to gain accessto official microdata has not evenbeen solved in principle. It is truethat due to the European microdataarchives established atCEPS/INSTEAD in Luxembourg(cf. the contribution of GastonSchaber in this newsletter) thesituation has improved greatly.However, the experiences madewith LIS show how time-consumingand tedious it is to organise a cross-national database based on officialmicrodata via bilateral contracts.Although extraordinarily high secu-rity standards aimed at preventingthe misuse of microdata were im-plemented from the very beginning,it took years to establish the currentdatabase. Apparently the Luxem-bourg Employment Study, a recentattempt to make labour force sur-veys available, is making the sameexperiences. In a way, these aca-demic institutions have to repeatwhat Eurostat has already done: toharmonise national microdata ex-post. The waste of public money isobvious, and opportunity costs arehigh. Nevertheless, the impact oncomparative research was extraor-dinary. Many researchers aroundthe world used these data and pub-lished highly recognised work -which would not have been possiblewithout this database.

Confidentiality and access to mi-crodata*

It is obvious that the current condi-tions for access to microdata are farfrom satisfactory. Access to micro-data was gradually restricted inEurope in the early 1980s via na-tional data protection measures. Inmost Western European countries,the possible misuse of microdatahas become an issue of political

* This section draws on an unpublished paper by Müller and Wirth, 1994


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debate, the crucial point beingidentity disclosure.The right to ensure freedom of in-formation forms part of the ‘Euro-pean Convention on HumanRights’. But the convention alsocontains another article which ishighly relevant in this context: the‘right to respect private life’. The‘Convention on Data Protection’,which was signed in the early 1980sby the Council of Europe, laid downa number of principles which influ-enced data protection legislation inmany countries as well as withinthe European Communities. Shortlyafter that, the Council of Europepassed a recommendation on scien-tific research and statistics. Therecommendation, accepted by theCouncil of Ministers, recognisedscientific research and statistics as aspecial case and introduced ‘defacto anonymity’ of individual dataas a criterion for data protection.This means that microdata are to beconsidered safe if the disclosure ofidentity cannot be achieved unlessan ‘unreasonable amount of time,cost and manpower required toidentify the individual’ (Hunstix1991) is invested.It is very likely that all of us acceptthe principle that providing datashould not bring any person or in-stitution disadvantages. The secur-ing of privacy and confidentiality isof crucial concern for all data-collecting institutions or persons. Inthis respect statisticians and scien-tists have identical interests.Breaches in confidentiality willhave negative impacts on both ofthem, irrespective of whether offi-cial or academic surveys are con-cerned. The conservation of confi-dentiality and privacy is of mutualinterest, and LIS provides again agood example in this context. How-ever, in public debates the risk ofintentional disclosure is often exag-gerated. In the past, many studieswere carried out examining how itwould be possible to protect the in-terest of data subjects by means ofprocedures that ensure privacy andconfidentiality and at the same timesecure access to data needed by the

users. A recent study carried out bythe German Statistical Office(Müller 1991) reveals that it is ex-tremely difficult to identify indi-viduals once direct identifiers anddetailed regional information areremoved. At a recent conferenceorganised by Eurostat (CEC 1993)several contributions supportedthese findings. The fact that all datainclude measurement errors or, forother reasons, are incompatible withthe prior knowledge of an invadershows that there is a strong naturalbarrier against disclosure. Theoreti-cal studies on the risks of identitydisclosure have often neglected thisfactor. Practical experience incountries which have been provid-ing public use files for years showthat the scientific community can betrusted. Researchers have scientificinterests and subscribe to high ethi-cal standards. The permanent re-enforcement of these standards, forexample via formal commitments ofdata users and their institutions to‘codes of conduct’, and organisa-tional safety measures are an addi-tional safeguard against confidenti-ality breaches.

The need for a balanced decisionIt is obvious that privacy and confi-dentiality must be balanced againstthe human right of information.The risk of disclosure exists even ifaccess to microdata outside statisti-cal offices is completely impossible.There is, of course, always the riskthat somebody, be it in the statisti-cal office itself or in the interviewercrew, misuses his or her position.However, if one mistrusted theseprofessional groups in the same wayone sometimes mistrusts scientists,one would really have to thinkabout closing the offices down. Onecan imagine how high the costs ofnon-access are if one considers theenormous wealth of highly recog-nised research findings of research-ers working with the microdataprovided by LIS.Research on the evolution of aEuropean society, on economic,social and political integration canonly be done if comparable data on

social structures and processes areavailable. Statistical offices makeimportant contributions not only toinformation needs. Their contribu-tion to substantive research is alsoindispensable and highly appreci-ated. However, due to the enormousresearch agenda which was de-scribed above the involvement ofuniversities and research teams inother organisations outside the sta-tistical offices is also necessary. Afew countries, among which GreatBritain and France occupy a promi-nent place, have already developedcomprehensive national services toadvance the use of national micro-data. These may be important andpioneering efforts, but they do notsuffice to create a modern Europeaninfrastructure for high-quality socialresearch. It is evident that the cur-rent conditions of access to micro-data are far from being satisfactory.A research team, for example, in-terested in doing a historical cross-national study on stratification inthe European Union, not to speak ofthe whole of Europe, would en-counter enormous problems to getall the microdata it needs. Althoughthe EU's Statistical Office (Euros-tat) has meanwhile acquired a size-able stock of microdata from na-tional statistical offices, so far nopossibilities exist to use these datafor general scientific purposes out-side Eurostat. According to a Coun-cil Regulation currently operative,microdata given to Eurostat byMember States may be used for sta-tistical purposes only. The commu-nication of data to third parties isnot allowed. This regulation hasbeen extended to also include mi-crodata communicated by the mem-bers of the European EconomicArea. Therefore, in order to do acomparative study, a research teamwould have to consult each statisti-cal office separately to get access tonational microdata. The team wouldhave to comply with quite differentrules, and in some countries accesscould even be denied if no nativeresearcher was involved. Theamount of money, time and energynecessary to accomplish this task is


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so prohibitively high that as yet no-body has succeeded in preparingsuch a comparative study coveringall European countries.For various reasons the statisticaloffice of the European Union is ofcrucial importance to comparativeresearch. Eurostat’s contribution tothe harmonisation of statistics hasbeen tremendous. The many meth-odological studies Eurostat organ-ised dealing with the comparabilityof national statistics, governmentaldata services and meta-informationsystems are very helpful for many ofus. Its cooperativeness regardingoutside researchers is highly recog-nised. With its limited resourcesEurostat tries hard to meet specialdata needs of individual research-ers. The full exploitation of its po-tential contribution to comparativeresearch is, however, significantlylimited by two facts:• the Office has no extra re-

sources for data requested byoutside users;

• the Office is subject to an ex-traordinarily strict data legisla-tion.

In practice, the lack of extra re-sources to meet such demands leadsto a situation where special services,e.g. the extraction of aggregate ta-bles from microdata, cannot developin such a way that they would meetthe needs of comparative research-ers. As a result, the scientific com-munity cannot benefit from theenormous efforts made by Eurostat,supported by her national partners,to achieve an international har-monisation of national surveys. Thecurrently operative legislation evenleads to a situation where thosecountries that do allow access tomicrodata in the national context

cannot apply this principle to EUsurveys. In Germany, for example,the combination of national andEuropean regulations producesquite absurd results. Since theEuropean Labour Force Survey isintegrated into the national micro-census, the German Federal Bureauof Statistics sees no possibility ofmaking the labour force surveyavailable to the scientific commu-nity - although access to the micro-data of the microcensus is granted.In order to encourage economic andsocial research on Europe, someform of access to the Eurostat's mi-crodata must be guaranteed. Whatis possible within many individualcountries must also be possible atthe European level. The 1994 draftfor a Council Regulation ‘OnCommunity Action in the Field ofStatistics’ (CEC COM[94] 78 final)is a step in the right direction. Ac-cording to article 17, ‘Access toconfidential data which do not al-low direct identification may begranted to scientific research in-stitutes, researchers and authoritiesresponsible for the production ofstatistics other than Communitystatistics...’ under certain condi-tions. It remains to be seen, how-ever, if this principle can be put intopractice. It would be essential thatEurostat herself could act as a dis-tributor. Otherwise, a comparativistresearch team would still have todeal with language barriers andorganisational imponderabilities.The draft is still under discussion,but we all hope that there will be abreakthrough at the European level.Certainly not only the researchcommunity, but also our politicaldecision makers - both at the EUand at the national level - wouldbenefit from it.

References:European Communities - Commission(1994): Draft. Council Regulation. ‘OnCommunity Action in the Field of Sta-tistics’. Com(94) 78 final. Luxemburg.:Office for Official Publications of theEC._(1993): International Seminar on Sta-tistical Confidentiality. Proceedings.Luxemburg: Office for Official Publi-cations of the EC.de Guchtenaire, P. & E. Mochmann(1990): Data protection and data access.Reports from ten countries on dataprotection and data access in socialresearch. Amsterdam.Flora, P. et al (1994): Social Statisticsand Social Reporting in and for Europe.Bonn: IZ.Hustinx, P. (1994): Policy Observationson Privacy and Confidentiality. In: Eu-rostat, Strategic Issues in StatisticalPolicy. Luxembourg: Office for OfficialPublications of the EC.ILO (1990): Economically active popu-lation, employment, unemployment andhours of work (household surveys),second edition, Statistical Sources andMethods, Volume 3. Geneva.__(1992): Household and Income Ex-penditure Surveys, Statistical Sourcesand Methods, Vol. 6. Geneva.Müller, W. et al (1991). Die faktischeAnonymität von Mikrodaten. [De factoanonymity of microdata.]. = Sta-tistisches Bundesamt (Ed.), Schriften-reihe der Bundesstatistik, Vol. 19.Stuttgart: Metzler-Poeschel.Müller, W. & Wirth, H (1994). Re-search Needs for European Microdataand Data Confidentiality. Unpublishedpaper. University of Mannheim.

Franz Kraus is economist, Manag-ing Director of the EURODATAResearch Archive and Co-editor ofthis newsletter.

The description below outlines thebasic microdata-based activities of

the CEPS/INSTEAD. The Centreoriginates from a private, non-profit

organisation founded in 1978 forcomparative, transnational researchon persistent poverty in industrial-ised countries (within the frame-work of the first EC programme tocombat poverty). In consequence ofthe steady development and com-plexification of its national and in-

Gaston Schaber

CEPS / INSTEADCentre d’Etudes de Populations, de Pauvreté et Politiques Socio-Economiques - International Networks for Studies in Technology, Envi-ronment, Alternatives, Development


13

ternational research activities, theCentre was given by Luxembourglaw, in 1989, the status of a PublicEstablishment with scientific, ad-ministrative and financial auton-omy. It has proven expertise in sci-entific, research-driven social andeconomic data production, withhigh-quality control at a nationaland international comparative level,and carries out and coordinates na-tional, transnational and inter-regional research in the social sci-ences. It has, since its intellectualbeginnings in 1978, developed andcoordinated networks of Europeanresearchers, provided training fa-cilities for researchers from a largenumber of countries and disciplines,and has created, through its inte-grated networks, comparability be-tween data and systems of its part-ners.The institute carries out micro-economic and micro-social studiesand creates micro-economic andmicro-social data bases,• with the aim of developing in-

struments for analysing, pro-gramming and simulating socio-economic policies,

• producing innovative informa-tion, and adding value to con-ventional classical data by cre-ating compatibility and compa-rability,

• developing innovative method-ology and creating new infor-mation instruments, useful ei-ther for monitoring policies orfor technology transfer.

CEPS/INSTEAD maintains closelinks with many major researchinstitutes throughout the EuropeanUnion, Central and Eastern Europe,the United States, the FSU, andelsewhere. It develops and consoli-dates its networks of research andresearchers through the joint exe-cution of transnational projects un-der contract. At present, these net-works function mainly within thesocial sciences, but they are ex-panding to include progressivelyexact sciences and technology, sothat the networks may makestronger contributions to the eco-nomic and social development, and

re-development, as well as re-investment, in the regions ofEurope and elsewhere.

The Luxembourg Income Study(LIS)The Luxembourg Income Study (theLIS Project) began in 1983 underthe joint sponsorship of the Gov-ernment of Luxembourg andCEPS/INSTEAD. It is now fundedon a continuing basis by CEPS/-INSTEAD and by the national sci-ence and social science researchfoundations of its member coun-tries. The project has four goals:• to test the feasibility for creating

a database containing social andeconomic micro-data collectedin household surveys from dif-ferent countries;

• to provide a method allowingresearchers to use the data underrestrictions required by thecountries providing the data;

• to create a system that wouldallow research requests to be re-ceived and returned to users atremote locations;

• to promote comparative researchon the economic status of popu-lations in different countries.

The project now has a membershipthat includes countries in Europe,North America, the Far East, andAustralia. The database now con-tains information for more than 25countries for one or more years,with negotiations constantly under-way to add data from additionalcountries (including, at present forexample, Korea, Russia, Portugal,and Mexico).The LIS database has a total of over60 datasets covering the period1968 to 1992; the database is ac-cessed globally via electronic mailnetworks by over 300 users in 28countries. In addition to harmoniseddata, LIS users, who come from allareas of research activity, are of-fered extensive documentation con-cerning the technical aspects of thesurvey data, and concerning thesocial institutions of income provi-sion in member countries.

LIS-based reports have appeared inbooks, articles and dissertations.LIS itself has published over 115Working Papers (full list on re-quest). The project conducts annualsummer workshops to introduceresearchers to the database, and togive scholars experience in cross-national analysis of social policyissues related to income distribu-tion.A LIS Newsletter is published twiceyearly. Contact: Caroline de Tom-beur, LIS at CEPS/INSTEAD, B.P.65, L-7201 Walferdange, Luxem-bourg. Phone +352-333233 218,Fax +352-332705, Email [email protected]

The Luxembourg EmploymentStudy (LES)Employing the LIS procedures tooffer researchers controlled use ofotherwise confidential and protectedmicro-data, a newer project, theLuxemburg Employment Study(LES) collects, standardises andmakes available for remote use themicro-data from a set of labourforce surveys from the early 1990’s.The project is designed to facilitatethe study of different labour marketrelated issues, including analysis oflabour market behaviour on an in-dividual level, or in the frame of thehousehold, of educational and occu-pational patterns, of retirement de-cisions ...Currently, the LES database in-cludes nine microdata sets: fromAustria, Hungary, Luxembourg,Norway, United Kingdom, UnitedStates, Czech Republic, Sloveniaand Sweden; datasets to be added inthe near future will come fromFinland, France, Spain, Poland andSwitzerland.Around 90 variables are being cre-ated, classified into 12 main groups:demographic background; workstatus; employment characteristicsof main job; information on secondjob; previous work experience ofpersons not in employment; searchfor employment; situation of inac-tive persons; education and train-ing; situation one year before sur-


14

vey; labour force status; earningsand income; technical items.

The Panel Comparability Proj-ect (PACO) for longitudinalstudies of persons and house-holdsDesigned to overcome the technicaland methodological problems fac-ing the comparative researcher, andto maximise the potential of panelsurveys for the analysis of dynamicchange, the formal PACO projectwas initiated by CEPS/INSTEAD in1992. It was based on earlier ex-ploratory comparative work under-taken at CEPS/INSTEAD since1986, and on activities developedbetween 1990 and 1993 under theaegis of a major network grant fromthe European Science Foundation.Work is currently nearing comple-tion under the Human Capital andMobility Programme of the Euro-pean Commission.PACO represents an innovative andcentralised attempt to create thetechnical infrastructure for thecomparative study of European so-cial policy, through the creation of adatabase of comparable variablesacross different countries and over alarger number of years.The PACO team adopted a techni-cal and research strategy whichcombined centralised work atCEPS/INSTEAD with a dispersednetwork of researchers in the par-ticipating countries. Variable speci-fication is the responsibility of allmembers of the research network,and is carried out jointly by allmembers of the research group.The PACO database contains datafrom household panel studies inLuxembourg (PSELL), Germany(SOEP), Great Britain (BHPS), theUnited States (PSID) and France

(ESEML-Lorraine), for yearsranging from 1986 through 1994. Itconsists of harmonised and stan-dardised variables at cross-sectionaland longitudinal level, for individu-als and for households, with identi-cal variable names, labels and valueformats, and a common plan fordefinition and recoding. Develop-ment work is continuing on thePACO database, with data fromhousehold panel studies of othercountries being added. Discussionsare also underway with Russian andBelarussian researchers for inclu-sion of comparable data from na-tional and regional studies. In addi-tion, an independent but linkedcomparative database of informa-tion on social protection is underdevelopment at CEPS/INSTEAD.A number of research papers basedon the PACO files have been pub-lished in the series „ComparativeAnalysis of Longitudinal Data“ andcan be ordered (Contact: MarciaTaylor, network coordinator; Gas-ton Schaber, PACO project director;Günther Schmaus, assistant projectdirector).

The Panel Comparability Proj-ect on FIRMSThe Centre works at the develop-ment of longitudinal studies onfirms since 1983 - and in a com-parative perspective since 1988.The comparative programme runsfor most of the partners at a re-gional level, not the national one:Lorraine in France, Walloon Regionin Belgium, Southern Denmark,Lower Saxony, and (since 1995) theMoscow Region. Until recently, themain focus has been on industry;some partners are ready to includeprogressively segments of the serv-ice sector. This important module ofthe Centre’s activities may be de-

scribed in a further issue of theEURODATA Newsletter.At the national level, the Luxem-bourg Panel on Firms has been de-veloped in order to set up a dynamicdatabase referring to the structure ofthe economy and to the labour mar-ket,• to design and test economic in-

dicators,• to evaluate the impact of public

policy on the firms,• to produce relevant information

for decision makers in mattersof education and training.

This very short presentation - whichhopefully will be detailed in subse-quent issues of this Newsletter -gives a summary view only of themajor comparative ventures in op-eration at the Centre and within itsnetworks. Such a view needs to becompleted(a) by a thorough description of thebasic research tasks which theCentre performs at the level of thecountry it is rooted in, and withoutwhich the comparative endeavourscould hardly be supported,(b) by a more explicite presentationof the Centre’s aim to contribute tothe progressive development ofbetter integrated information sys-tems for monitoring changes andpolicies, and particularly to the de-velopment of a common researchinfrastructure in the economic andsocial sciences.

Professor Gaston Schaber,President, CEPS/INSTEADB.P. 65L-7210 WalferdangePhone +352 - 33 3233 555Fax +352 - 3334 52

The need for a qualitative dataarchive policyOne of the most notable advancesbrought by the establishment of theEconomic and Social Science Re-search Council (ESRC) was thecreation of a national ESRC Data

Louise Corti

The QUALIDATA Resource CentreA new resource funded by the „Economic and Social Research Council“(ESRC) to archive qualitative materials in the UK


15

Archive for machine-readablequantitative survey data. By insist-ing on adequate arrangements forthe deposit of material arising fromresearch it funds, ESRC has en-sured that the progress of quantita-tive social research is cumulative.Crucial data can be re-analysed inthe light of unexpected socialchanges and the new questionswhich each succeeding debatebrings. Money spent on researchbecomes not only immediate outlay,but also investment for the future.The ESRC Data Archive currentlyhas a staff of 28 to provide this cru-cial function.Until October of 1994, ESRC hadno explicit policy for depositingresearch material generated fromthe qualitative studies which itfunds. As a result, over the last 25years huge resources have been de-voted to qualitative interview, eth-nographic, case and anthropologicalstudies but the data has often beendestroyed, is untraceable or inacces-sible.Professor Paul Thompson and othermembers of the Department of So-ciology at the University of Essex,seeing the need for a policy for ar-chiving qualitative materials, car-ried out a pilot survey in 1991which sought the views of academ-ics who had undertaken qualitativeresearch funded by the ESRC. Theresponse was over-whelminglypositive; many of the social scien-tists responding agreed with theneed to preserve such research ma-terial and welcomed the proposalfor an ESRC initiative in this area.

Establishment of QUALIDATAOn the basis of these findings fromthe pilot study, the ESRC awardedProfessor Thompson almost threequarters of a million pounds over 5years to start up a Resource Centreto facilitate and document the ar-chiving of qualitative materialwhilst also drawing the researchcommunities' attention to it's exis-tence and potential. The Centre,QUALIDATA, is located within theDepartment of Sociology at Essex.Together with the Director, Profes-

sor Paul Thompson, at present theCentre has four members of staff.The Centre's Advisory Committee ismade up of experts in fields of rele-vance to the project, with the inten-tion of representing the perspectivesof the relevant disciplines and of theacademic, government and policy,national library and archival, andmedia communities. Academic dis-ciplines represented are sociology,social policy, anthropology, socialand economic history, political sci-ence, social and human geographyand social psychology and businessstudies.

QUALIDATA's first yearThe main activities for the Centrein the first year have been:1. Investigating potential reposito-ries for depositing data such as in-terview transcripts and tape re-cording of interviews, diaries andfield notes from selected projects.There are already some well-established archives at various lo-cations around Britain specialisingin related material. Amongst oth-ers, the Centre will use the NationalSound Archive at the British Li-brary, the Mass Observation Ar-chive at the University of Sussex,the British Library of Political andEconomic Science at LSE, theModern Records Centre at WarwickUniversity, the Pitt Rivers Museumin Oxford and the School of Scot-tish Studies at Edinburgh. Negotia-tions have focused on acquisitionspolicies, methods of cataloguingand facilities for storing and pro-viding access to the holdings. Asurvey of all University librariesand Research Centres in Britain hasbeen conducted to establish whichalready hold or would be preparedto hold qualitative materials.2. Constructing a priority list ofqualitative data projects consideredto have high archival potential andwhose investigators are agreeable todeposit. Criteria include theuniqueness and physical state of theresearch material as well as the an-ticipated degree of future usage.QUALIDATA has conducted twopostal surveys of potential deposi-

tors; a follow-up of the original1991 pilot survey of ESRC grantholders (sociologists and anthro-pologists); and a postal question-naire sent to all holders of ESRCgrants since 1970 who were thoughtto have used qualitative methods intheir research. Furthermore, theCentre has had meetings with othermajor funders of social research toconsider strategies for archivingqualitative data arising from studiesthey fund.Ultimately, the Centre aims to im-plement a continuing strategy bywhich researchers will be encour-aged to make their qualitative re-search material available to others.3. Developing agreements with re-positories and principal investiga-tors for the deposit of material.These have focused largely on is-sues of confidentiality of the per-sonal data and the implications forconditions of access as well asmeans of monitoring the researchuse of the material. QUALIDATAhas drafted a set of guiding "Notesfor Depositors" and a number offorms and legal documents regard-ing the processing of materials andconditions of deposit.

Year 2 and beyondAlthough the first year was primar-ily a time for setting up the Centreand developing procedures for ac-cessions, referral, depositing andcataloguing qualitative researchmaterials, the Centre has processeda small number of datasets. In mid-1996, information about qualitativedata sources will be available inprinted and machine-readable formand accessible and searchablethrough JANET (the United King-dom's joint academic network) andINTERNET. QUALIDATA willalso have its own HOMEPAGE onthe World Wide Web. Since theESRC Data Archive are also basedhere at Essex, QUALIDATA areworking together with them to en-sure that some qualitative materialsare available as machine-readabledocuments, the descriptions ofwhich are accessible through their


16

own on-line bibliographic retrievalsystem (BIRON).

Resources for Research andTeachingThe Centre is committed to organ-ising and hosting twice-yearlyworkshops to promote issues rele-vant to archiving and to facilitatesecondary analysis of archived ma-terial, and to provide ESRC andother social science researcherswith a forum for advice and ex-change of experience on issues re-lating to qualitative research. Thefirst of these workshops entitled"Archiving Qualitative Data: Ques-tions for Researchers" was held inSeptember 1995 at the NationalSound Archive in London. Thespeakers invited had extensive ex-perience in qualitative methods andarchiving. Because the intention ofthis workshop was to stimulate atrickle down of information, par-ticipation was deliberately restrictedto Directors, key researchers orlecturers with extensive experiencein either doing or teaching qualita-tive research.QUALIDATA will be linking inwith other workshops hosted by theDepartment of Sociology at Essex

and other departments and centres.On May 1995, QUALIDATA con-tributed to a workshop at Essex on"Life-story Interviewing andTrauma" and will be participatingin a second workshop at Essex in1996 entitled "In the Money: Inter-viewing Financial Elites". It ishoped that these workshops willattract postgraduate students andthat the ideas will feed into bothundergraduate and postgraduatestudies.QUALIDATA is also looking intoexploiting archived material to pro-duce educational resources, such asthose based on CD-ROM technol-ogy. In conjunction with the Na-tional Life Story Collection at theNational Sound Archive, QUALI-DATA hopes to contribute to mak-ing oral history and other researchmaterial available in multi-mediaform. The Centre believes that theuse of new technologies will en-courage research using primarysources at the primary, secondaryand tertiary educational levels.

EndnoteThrough it's activities it is envis-aged that the Centre will provide ageneral stimulus to the standards of

qualitative research and machine-readable storage of qualitative datain Britain as well as encouraging amore active interface betweenqualitative and quantitative re-search.If you are:• interested in depositing your

qualitative materials,• interested in a repository who

would be keen to hold and makeavailable qualitative data,

• are interested in obtainingqualitative data for future re-search or teaching,

• or would like further informa-tion about QUALIDATA,

please contact:

QUALIDATADepartment of Sociology,University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park,Colchester, Essex, CO4 3SQ.Phone +44-1206-873058Fax +44-1206-873410E-mail [email protected]

Louise Corti is Senior Administra-tor of QUALIDATA at Departmentof Sociology at the University ofEssex.

EURODATA Newsletter No.2 Research Institutes

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In 1993, the RSC consolidated andextended the research fields of itstwo predecessor research centres atthe EUI, the European Culture Re-search Centre (ECC) and the Euro-pean Policy Unit (EPU). The EPUwas founded in 1984 to support re-search on the European Communi-ties and to the related policy issues,internal and external, whereas theECC, set up in 1987, promoted andcoordinated research at the Institutein the sphere of culture.There are several aspects to theCentre’s research activities. Eachyear, under the Jean Monnet Fel-lowship Scheme, post-doctoral re-search grants are awarded at theRSC to enable academics to conductresearch for a maximum period ofone year on issues connected withthe Centre’s research programme.The RSC also runs the Jean MonnetChair programme, in which distin-guished persons from politics (e.g.Guiliano Amato, Egon Bahr, Elisa-beth Guigou) or the academic world(e.g. Eckhard Rehbinder, FritzScharpf, Horst Siebert) are invitedto visit the RSC for brief periods tospeak on subjects focusing on majorresearch areas at the Centre.The Robert Schuman Centre sup-ports a number of inter-disciplinaryworking groups at the Institutewhich encourage exchanges be-tween researchers, Jean MonnetProfessors and both internal andexternal professors. Additionally,the Centre is responsible for thecoordination of research and assis-tance projects, providing the neces-sary intellectual, organisational and(in some cases) financial support,whilst at the same time contributingto the strengthening of cooperationnetworks in Europe and beyond, inareas which form part of its pro-gramme.

The Centre’s academic programmetakes the form of seminars, work-shops, round tables, conferences,and (Jean Monnet Chair) lectures.For the last two years, the RobertSchuman Centre has also organisedan Environmental Summer Work-shop, in July 1994, „Environmentin Europe: The ImplementationChallenge“, and in July 1995, „En-vironment in Europe: In Search ofFlexible and Efficient Instruments“.The Summer Workshop brings to-gether policy-makers, environ-mental experts, practising lawyersand academics, and through a seriesof intensive lectures and workshopson environmental law and policies,seeks to further the understandingand functioning of the laws andpolicies under discussion.The director of the Robert SchumanCentre is Professor Yves Mény,formerly Professor at the Instituted’Etudes Politiques, Paris. The RSChas also instituted a programmecreating Joint Professorship Chairswith the four departments of theEUI (economics, law, history, andpolitical science). The first of 10joint chairs has been awarded toMichael Artis (economics). Theteam is completed by Simon Towle(Doctor EUI), Research Associate,secretaries, Annette Merlan,Monique Cavallari, and DorotheaDetring. Additional members of theRSC for 1995 are research associ-ates, Dr. Jonathan Golub (Europeanenvironmental policy) and Dr.Martin Rhodes (social policy andthe future of the European welfarestates).

The Research Programme ofthe Robert Schuman CentreThe Robert Schuman Centre hascommitted itself to a research pro-gramme, or framework programme,as a general guideline for its re-

search activities for the period1993-1997, the precise content ofwhich is elaborated during this pe-riod both according to the evolutionof problems and policies in Europeand through collaboration pro-grammes with other research cen-tres. The programme intends to de-velop as far as possible original,inter-disciplinary, policy-orientedresearch.The framework has three principalareas of enquiry:

1) What is Europe?This area of research, which em-bodies one of the fundamental rea-sons for the establishment of theCentre, seeks to examine the ques-tion of Europe’s identity, to selectand subject to further enquiry thepolitical problems of the Union(public policy, institutions) and tostudy the relations between theEuropean Union and the outsideworld, focusing in particular onCentral Europe, the Mediterranean,and Asia.

2) Socio-political problems ofEuropeIn this context, the Centre’s objec-tive is to address the complex issuesrelating to the social and economictransformations which are rockingthe foundations of European soci-ety. This is felt by institutions, legalsystems, social structures (such asthe family, trade unions, parties,etc.), through the destabilisation ofelites, the questioning of value-systems and solidarity networks.The economic crisis and unem-ployment, which result from thisdestabilisation process, have conse-quences which go much furtherthan simply to change individual orcollective wealth: strain to socialwelfare, new forms of social exclu-sion, spatial polarisation of poverty,to mention but a few. The RSCaims to set up research projects,focusing on certain poignant issuesin this respect, including emigrationand citizenship, insecurity and ur-ban impoverishment.

Yves Mény & Simon Towle

The Robert Schuman CentreThe Robert Schuman Centre (RSC) is an interdisciplinary researchcentre at the European University Institute (EUI) which began its ac-tivities in September 1993. Its principle aim is to promote research intothe major issues confronting European society.

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3) The „import/export“ of policiesand institutionsThis expression conveniently de-scribes the processes of imitation,exchange or mimicry governing theconstruction or functioning of pub-lic as well as private systems. Thesephenomena may result from exter-nal domination or from innovationby elites (political, legal, economicactors) seeking to modify the eco-nomic or political system to whichthey belong. The research of theCentre seeks not so much to assessthe results of such competition, butrather to analyse the groups mobi-lised in these exchanges or imita-tions (lawyers, journalists, policy-makers, etc.).Within this framework, the RSCcarries out several projects, amongstothers:• The Reform of European Insti-

tutions: the activities of thisprogramme include inquiry intoa comparative study into the re-lationship between legitimacyand democracy in federal sys-tem, the ways in which Euro-pean Union policies can respondto the technical complexity ofmodern societies, as well as ananalysis into the problems re-lating to the establishment ofEuropean Administrative agen-cies.

• The Policies of Law and Orderin Europe: This programmeundertakes an in depth inquiryinto the roles of the police andjudiciary and examination oftheir mutual interaction. Analy-sis will also be given to the his-torical evolution of policy func-tions (public order, criminal in-vestigations) in different coun-tries, on issues such as the influ-ence of drug-trafficking on lawenforcement organisations, theculture of police forces and thejudiciary of Europe, and organ-isational strategies against po-litico-administrative crime.

Assistance / Consultancy at theRobert Schuman CentreThe RSC manages two projects incollaboration with the EuropeanCommission, DG-I TACIS:• The project to strengthen the

Georgian Parliamentary Re-search Service: There are sev-eral aspects to this project,which is being administered atthe RSC. It involves the creationof a parliamentary library, andthe installation of informationtechnology to enable it to pro-vide the requisite parliamentaryresearch and information serv-ices, the training of the Geor-gian PRS staff, through coursesorganised in Tbilisi and inEurope, through fellowships toWestern Parliamentary ResearchServices. Finally, the projectforesees study trips for GeorgianMPs to European States to helpfamiliarise them with westerndemocratic traditions.

• The Russian Duma Project:The aim of this project is totrain Russian MPs in democraticparliamentary traditions. Theproject will involve teaching ofcourses in Russia, and studytrips to Western European par-liaments, and visits to Russianelectoral constituencies.

Working GroupsThe RSC supports the followingWorking Groups:• Working Group on Environ-

mental Studies: This group wasset up in 1987, and has createdan extensive network of contactswith environmental institutesaround the world. It promotesresearch seminars and has alsoorganised conferences, such asits 1992 conference on environ-mental and transport issues inEurope, and in 1994, on accessto environmental justice.

• Working Group on Interna-tional Relations: This groupwas established in 1993 andseeks to promote the inter-disciplinary study of interna-tional relations, providing a spe-

cifically European focus for thediscussion of international rela-tions. Seminars are held bymembers of the Institute andexternal experts, and, in 1994, aworkshop was organised on„Approaches to European Mul-tilateralism“.

• Working Group on Centraland Eastern Europe: The inter-disciplinary group was estab-lished in 1991 with a view toaddressing policy problems inWestern, Central and EasternEurope. In 1992, a conferencewas held on „Impediments tothe Transition: The EasternEuropean Countries and thePolicies of the European Com-munity“, and in 1993, work-shops were held on „Industrialrelations, unions and labourmarkets in Central and EasternEurope in Transition“, and „Pri-vatisation and Property Rights“.

• Working Group on „Genderand Society“: Set up in 1990,the group has organised a seriesof seminars on „Women’s citi-zenship in Europe from the 18thto the 20th century and the rela-tionship between the public andprivate spheres“, and workshopson „The rights of woman“ (inhonour on Mary Wollstone-craft’s „A vindication of therights of woman“, and on „Gen-der and labour law“.

Some RSC Working Papers:Scharpf, F.W.: Community and Auton-omy. Multilevel Policy-Making in theEuropean Union. (No. 94/1)Horiuchi, T.: Japanese Public Policy forCooperative Supply of Credit Guaranteeto Small Firms - Its Evolution since thePost War and Banks’ Commitment.(No. 94/3)Tarrow, S.: Social Movements inEurope: Movement Society of Europe-anization of Conflict? (No. 94/8)Dimitrijevic, V.: The 1974 Constitutionas a Factor in the Collapse of Yugosla-via or as a Sign of Decaying Totalitari-anism. (No. 94/9)Uvalic, M.: Privatization in Disinte-grating East European States: The Caseof Former Yugoslavia. (No. 94/11)

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Weiler, J.: European Democracy and itsCritique: Five Uneasy Pieces. (No.95/11)

Some Jean Monnet Chair Papers:Amato, G.: Problems of Governance -Italy and Europe: A Personal Perspec-tive. (No. 94/17)Williamson, J.: Proto-EMU as an Alter-native to Maastricht. (No. 95/22)Siebert, H.: Eastern Germany in theFifth Year. Investment Hammering inthe Basement? (No. 95/24)Schofield, N.: Modelling Political Orderin Representative Democracies. (No.95/26)

European University InstituteRobert Schuman CentreBadia Fiesolana 1I-50016 San Domenico di FiesoleVia dei Roccellini, 9Phone +39 - 55 - 4685.326 or 370Fax +39 - 55 - 4685.330Email [email protected]

Yves Mény is Professor of PoliticalScience at the EUI and Director ofthe Robert Schuman Centre.

Simon Towle is research associateat the Robert Schuman Centre.

Research Groups & Projects EURODATA Newsletter No.2

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The project studies family changesand family policies in twenty West-ern countries since World War II ina long-term perspective, althoughfocusing on the period since the1960s. The studies include mostWestern European countries, Po-land and Hungary, Canada, theUnited States of America and NewZealand. The project has grown outof recognition of the increased in-terest in systematic and comparativeresearch and the lack of compre-hensive and comparative studiesbased on a set of standardised data.The special gap this project fills isthat of describing and analysing the„big“, macro picture of familychange and family policies, placingthese developments in historical aswell as comparative perspective.Variations in Western countries arebeing studied comprehensively,drawing on expertise in demogra-phy, family sociology, political sci-ence, economics, family law, socialpolicy and family policy. The proj-ect studies general trends and na-tional developments in family for-mation, family structure and familyfunctions as well as family-relatedtrends with regard to (female) em-ployment, household income, andexpenditure patterns. It examinespolicy responses, such as child carepolicies, parenting policies, familyallowances, and other family cashand tax benefits. It will also look onfamily and child-related aspects ofsocial security and the welfare statein general. The broader context ofmain economic and social trendsand of politics are also part of eachcountry’s analysis.Standardised country reports andcomparative studies are produced bythe project members. They will bepublished in seven volumes at Ox-ford University Press in 1996 and1997. Five volumes with twentycountry reports focus on countryspecific developments. They analyse

the patterns of national family pol-icy regarding family structure, theeconomy and the labour market,and the welfare state. The mainpurposes are, first, to give a com-prehensive empirical description ofdevelopments, and, second, to drawan analytic „profile“ of nationalfamily policy that could be causedby broader structural and institu-tional characteristics of the society,such as social and political cleav-ages, value patterns and attitudes,economic and labour market struc-tures, and the institutional founda-tions of the welfare state.The first comparative volume fo-cuses on family changes, includingchapters on the institutional forma-tion of the family as expressed infamily law, and on the relationshipbetween the family and employ-ment. The second comparative vol-ume focuses on family policies, in-cluding chapters on comparisons ofsingle programmes and measuresand an analysis of policy „pack-ages“ and of the different types or„régimes“ of family policy. Thecomparative studies are mainlybased on the country reports andsystematic data files.A data file on family policies andfamily-related social policies is be-ing set up at the MZES while theproject is still in progress. This isdone in close cooperation withEURODATA, where a number ofrelated data files exist, e.g. on de-mography, family and householdstructures, employment, nationaleconomic accounts, and social ex-penditures. One major purpose ofthese data files is to provide a basisfor systematic comparative andhistorical analyses. The data fileswill not only serve the purposes ofthe current project, but will be up-dated regularly after the project willhave been concluded. They will beopen to further analyses.

The project is directed by PeterFlora (MZES, University of Mann-heim), Sheila Kamerman and Al-fred Kahn (Columbia UniversitySchool of Social Work, New York).It started in 1993 and will be con-cluded in 1997/1998. The MZES isthe site of coordination. ThomasBahle is the executive coordinator.The project is financed from variousnational sources. The coordinationat the MZES is financed by theGerman Science Foundation.At present, twenty country researchteams participate in the project. Theteams are set up by the followingprincipal researchers: Austria(Gerda Neyer, Institute of Demog-raphy at the Austrian Academy ofSciences), Belgium (Peter Flora),Canada (Maureen Baker, Mont-real), Denmark (Vita Pruzan, Dan-ish National Institute of Social Re-search), Finland (Matti Alestalo,Tampere), France (Christoph Star-zec, INSEE, Paris), Germany(Thomas Bahle and Franz Rothen-bacher, MZES), Greece (LauraAlipranti, National Centre of SocialResearch, Athens), Hungary(Rudolf Andorka, Budapest), Italy(Chiara Saraceno, Torino), Nether-lands (Anton Kuijsten, Amster-dam), New Zealand (Ian Pool,Population Studies Centre, Hamil-ton), Norway (Jon Eivind Kolberg,Institute of Applied Social Re-search, Oslo), Poland (StanislawaGolinowska, Institute of Labour andSocial Sciences, Warsaw), Spain(Lluis Flaquer, Barcelona), Sweden(Ulla Björnberg, Göteborg), Swit-zerland (Beat Fux, Zurich andMannheim), United Kingdom(Stein Ringen, Oxford), UnitedStates of America (Sheila Kamer-man and Alfred Kahn).

Thomas Bahle

Family Changes and Family Policiesin the Western WorldAn international research project

EURODATA Newsletter No.2 Special: Censuses in Eastern Europe

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Thomas Bahle is sociologist andresearcher at the Mannheim Centrefor European Social Research(MZES). He is responsible for theproject coordination.

When the former Soviet Union stillexisted the last population censuswas held in 1989. As was the casewith preceding censuses, the resultsof the 1989 census were publishedfor the whole territory and areavailable in printed form in Rus-sian. The 1989 census is the firstSoviet census which is also distrib-uted on microfiche and on diskette(by East View Publications (USA)).The microfiche edition is supple-mented by a bilingual Rus-sian/English „companion guide“leading through the twelve volumesof the all-union population census.Some successor states of the formerSoviet Union have published addi-tional results separately:Estonia also analysed and published- together with the Estonian resultsof the 1989 census - the results ofthe Estonian parts of the all-unioncensuses of 1959, 1970 and 1979 ina 2-volume bilingual edition (Eston-ian/English). In the past, data fromthe older censuses were availablefor a wider public in publicationscovering the whole Soviet Uniononly.Lithuania published its country re-sults in 1991 in three volumes inLithuanian. These contain compari-sons with the 1979 census andpartly go back to the census of1959.In Albania, the population census of1989 was the first one to be pub-lished in English and according tointernational recommendations.This publication was produced in1991 with technical support fromthe United Nations Statistical Divi-

sion (UNSTAT). This census publi-cation improved the supply of sta-tistical data tremendously.In Hungary, a population censuswas held in 1990. As the previouscensuses, it was carried out in thefirst year of the decade. The com-prehensive publication covering thecensus comprises all in all 27 vol-umes. The first three volumes dealwith „preliminary data“ (vol.1),„summary data on a 2% sample“(vol.2) and „summary data“ (fullanalysis) (vol.3). Volumes 4-23contain data on all of the 19 coun-ties. In addition, there exist a num-ber of thematic volumes on „house-holds and families“ (24), „economicactivity“ (25), „demographic struc-tures“ (27) and „active earners“.The analysis of the 1990 censuspaved the way for the analysis andpublication of some of the historicalcensuses. Thus, the results of thecensuses of 1850 and 1857 werepublished in a modern form. An-other 2-volume edition dealing withthe history of the Hungarian cen-suses from 1869-1990 documentsthe methods of data collection andthe assessed resp. published vari-ables. With the exception of vol-umes 2 and 3, which have beentranslated into English, all titles areavailable in Hungarian only. Butthe translation of the tables of con-tents into English is very helpful forthe user.Bulgaria carried out its most recentcensus in 1992, the previous onebeing organized in 1985. The publi-cations programme consists of eightnational thematic volumes on„demographic characteristics of thepopulation“ (vol.1), „socio-econo-mic characteristics of the popula-tion“ (vol.2), „population by dis-tricts, municipalities and settle-ments“ (vol.3), „households“ (vol.

4), „families“ (vol.5), „internal mi-gration“ (vol.6), „invalids“ (vol.7)and „graduates from higher, col-lege, general and vocational educa-tion“ (vol.8). Another series of titlesdeals with data from the housingcensus. Volume 1 of this series pre-sents „basic characteristics ofhousing fund“, volume 2 „livingconditions of the population“, vol-ume 3 „the country’s housingfund“. Moreover, a series of re-gional publications exists: a volumeon the housing stock and the livingconditions of the population is pub-lished for each of the nine districts.The data are presented on the levelsof regions, municipalities and set-tlements. Another regional seriesconsists of 28 volumes - one foreach region - and contains data on„demographic and socio-economiccharacteristics and housing fund bymunicipalities and settlements“. Allthese titles are published in Bul-garian only. Selected results re-garding the status of the populationand housing stock are presented ina publication which is available inEnglish and French. Compared tothe census of 1985, the publishingprogramme has been extendedenormously.The population census of 1991 informer Czechoslovakia was carriedout when the country was stillunited. As in earlier censuses, theresults have been published for thethree levels of the federation andboth federal states separately. Dueto the separation of the country intothe now independent states of theCzech Republic and the Slovak Re-public, most of the published vol-umes refer to the successor statesonly. The publications programmehas significantly grown in volume.With the exception of a small num-ber of titles, the bulk of the editionis published in the native language.

International research projectFamily Changes and Family Poli-cies in the Western WorldDirectors:

Peter Flora (Mannheim)Sheila Kamerman (New York)

Alfred Kahn (New York)Contact:

Thomas Bahle,University of MannheimMZES, D-68131 MannheimPhone. +49 - 621 - 2928406Fax +49 - 621 - [email protected]

Franz Rothenbacher

The 1990 Population Censuses in East and South-EastEuropeThis contribution deals with the censuses of population (often at thesame time censuses of buildings, housing and agricultural enterprises)which were carried out around 1990 in the east and south-east Euro-pean transition countries.

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In Poland, following the 1978 cen-sus which was held ahead of sched-ule, the eighth census since 1918was carried out as early as 1988.This census is the most comprehen-sive one to date. The data collectioncovers the socio-demographicstructure of the population, house-holds and families, and buildingsand dwellings. The results havebeen published in a large number oftabular volumes. All titles are inPolish, with the exception of sometables of contents that have beentranslated into English. In addition,many volumes include a historical-comparative perspective referring tothe census of 1978. By the end of1994, 18 volumes had been pub-lished.Romania carried out its most recentcensus in 1992, that is after therevolution, with the previous onebeing organized in 1977. The publi-cations covering the census includesome titles with preliminary dataand data analysis based on samples.An English volume presents „Gen-eral Results“; these data were col-lected according to the „Recommen-dations for Population and HousingCensuses“ of the United NationsEconomic Commission for Europe.The other three volumes containdetailed results according to na-tional classifications, all of them inRomanian. Volume 1 presents dataon „population and demography“,volume 2 the „socio-economicstructure of the population“, andvolume 3 deals with data on„buildings, dwellings and house-holds“. One feature of Romanianstatistics is that they are stronglyoriented towards international andwestern standards and that theyhave an extended programme ofdata presentation.In the former Federal Socialist Re-public of Yugoslavia (FSRJ), themost recent census was held in1991, following the previous one of1981. Planning and preparation ofthis census was still in the traditionof Yugoslav censuses. The divisionof the country into several inde-pendent countries influenced thepublication of the results. In most of

the now independent states the sta-tistical systems have been modern-ized and are oriented to westernmodels. This becomes evident notonly if one looks at the design of thepublications, but also - and this ismore important - if one considersthe statistical concepts used and thetype of data published. Another signis the bilingualism (native lan-guage/English), which is now to befound regularly in the StatisticalYearbooks.In Slovenia, the results of the „Cen-sus of population, households,housing and agricultural holdings“of 1991 have been published inlarger volumes („Results of Sur-veys“) and numerous bulletins (theseries „Statistical information“).While the bulletin series is still inSlovenian, the main volumes arepublished bilingually in Slove-nian/English. The first main vol-ume (Results of surveys, no.617/1994) gives a historical andmethodological introduction goingback to the first census of 1921 andincludes an inventory of assesseditems. Some data go back to thefirst Austrian census carried out in1857 in the later territory of Slove-nia.In Croatia, the results of the censusof 1991 have been published in aseries of comprehensive volumes.Each of these volumes deals with aspecial topic and presents data foreach settlement in Croatia. Thepublications are all issued in Croa-tian but an English table of contentsis included in some cases. So far, anumber of volumes have been pub-lished, covering the ethnical com-position of the population (docu-mentation no. 881, 1992), age andsex (no. 882, 1994), religion andmother tongue (no. 883, 1994),educational status, literacy and sex(no. 884, 1994), economic activityof the domestic population (no. 885,1994), agricultural population byactivity status and sex (no. 886,1994), households and families (no.887, 1994), dwellings (no. 888,1994) and usable dwellings andtheir equipment (no. 895, 1994).

In the Republic of Macedonia, thedefinitive results of the census of1991 were published in the series„Statistical Review“ in seven vol-umes. In this main series of Mace-donian statistics the results of thecensuses of 1981, 1971, 1961 und1948 were published. The publica-tion of the results for 1991 contin-ues this tradition. As yet, all titlesare in Macedonian. Volume number226 contains „basic data on thepopulation of municipalities“,no.228 „economic activity“, no.230„workers by social characteristics“,no.232 „citizens living abroad“,no.237 „demographic, educationaland economic characteristics of thepopulation“, no.240 „citizensworking abroad“ and no.241 „im-migrants“. These volumes are sup-plemented by others providing pre-liminary figures. It is characteristicfor the situation in the formerYugoslavia that Macedonia carriedout another population census asearly as June 1994.In the Federal Republic of Yugosla-via (SRJ) (Serbia and Montenegro),the results of the population censuswere published by the Federal Sta-tistical Office in several series. Asearly as 1991 four volumes withclassifications and nomenclaturesfor the former Socialist Federal Re-public of Yugoslavia were pub-lished. However, the published fac-tual data refer to Yugoslavia in itspresent borders only. Populationfigures have been published inseven volumes; apart from these,three volumes on agricultural enter-prises and - so far - two volumes onthe dwelling stock have been issued.The seven volumes on the popula-tion deal with population structure,households and families, the ethniccomposition of the population, ageand sex and economic activity. Allthese data are available down to thelevel of settlements.If one looks at common develop-ments in east European transitioneconomies one can see that in somecountries the population censuseswere planned and carried out priorto the transition phase; the results,however, were published during the

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phase of transition. This is the casewith Poland (1988), the former So-viet Union (1989), Albania (1989)and Hungary (1990). In thesecountries, the transition influencedboth data analysis and the publica-tion of results. Central trends arenow a growing bilingualism (nativelanguage/English; in the inter-warperiod. French was still the linguafranca in these countries), a generalmodernisation of the statistical sys-tems, the improvement of visualpresentation and the analysis of asyet unpublished material - espe-cially in a historical perspective.Those countries which carried outcensuses even after the beginning oftheir transition must be separatedfrom this group: Romania (1992)and Bulgaria (1992). The Czechand the Slovak Republic are specialcases. The structure of the census of1991 still followed the nationalpattern, but the dissolution of theformer Czechoslovakia brought newdemands with it. The census of1991 in the former Yugoslavia isalso a special case due to politicaldevelopments. The former FederalStatistical Office began to analysethe data; after the breakdown, how-ever, the former federal states ana-lysed and published the results in-dependently. But this does not con-stitute a historical change: the pre-ceding censuses of 1981 and beforewere - in addition to the Federalresults - analysed and publishedseparately. What is new, however,is a noticeable modernisation ofstatistics and an orientiation to in-ternational standards.

European Social Indicators EURODATA Newsletter No.2

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Data are presented for the most re-cent available year, that is in mostcases for 1992. A complete list ofsocial indicators will be presentedin each autumn edition of thisnewsletter. The spring edition willpublish an extended list of socialindicators on special topics as forinstance the labour market, theworking environment, demography,household and family, housing con-ditions, education, or social policyindicators, as for example indicatorson family policy. The indicatorspresented generally relate to annualdata and not to quarterly or monthlydata.I would like to mention that thissection on European social indica-tors has very much been inspired bythe social indicators lists of variousjournals on living conditions: firstof all Canadian Social Trends,which presents a list of social indi-cators for nine living domains and aspecial table on annual labour forceestimates on the last pages of thejournal in each issue. Some forty

indicators are presented. They em-brace the living domains popula-tion, family, labour force, income,education, health, justice, govern-ment, and economy.Furthermore, the Swedish VälfärdsBulletinen (Welfare Bulletin),which occasionally publishes spe-cific social indicators as part oftheir articles.The Norwegian Samfunnspeilet.Tidskrift om levekår og livsstil(Mirror of society. Journal on livingconditions and life-style) presents inits section „Sosiale indikatorer fraSSB“ graphs of social indicatorswith ten-year time series. They in-clude the domains population,health, education, labour, incomeand consumption, social care, cul-ture, housing and environment andcriminality. Thirty indicators arecovered.The quarterly Finnish journalHyvinvointi Katsaus (Bulletin onwell-being) publishes a table ontime series social indicators for

eight living domains and all in all38 indicators in the first number ofeach year. The living domains are:population and families, labourforce, income and wages, consump-tion, health, justice, environment,general economic indices.This section on social indicators isin some respect experimental. Indi-vidual indicators may change asdata availability and improvementsin social measurements will beachieved. New living domains maybe added or existing ones be ex-tended by additional indicators.Policy indicators could be includedin order to quantify the input side,too. And additional countries couldbe added, especially those of eastand south-east Europe. Anothertopic for the future could be theclustering of countries, and calcu-lating indices of central tendencyand dispersion.Find the table on the followingpages 22-23.

Franz Rothenbacher is sociologistwithin the EURODATA ResearchArchive at the Mannheim Centrefor European Social Research(MZES) and Co-editor of thisnewsletter.

Franz Rothenbacher

European Social IndicatorsThis introduces a new section within EURODATA Newsletter. In eachissue from now on a table named „European Social Indicators“ will givea selection of social indicators for the countries of Western Europe in across-sectional perspective.

Notes and Abbreviations in the following Table:DEMTSDB Demographic Time Series Data Base, EURODATA, MZES.HFSDB Household and Family Statistics Data Base, EURODATA, MZES.CoE Council of Europe, Strasbourg.1 Presse- u. Informationsamt der Bundesregierung (ed.): Sozialpolitische Umschau, no. 23/1995, 12 June 1995, p. 17.2 Presse- u. Informationsamt der Bundesregierung (ed.): Sozialpolitische Umschau, no. 18/1995, 8 May 1995, p. 24.A 1992;B 1991;C 1990;D 1989;E 1988;F 1987.G former „West Germany“.H Civilian active employed population. Probably small underestimation.

EURODATA Newsletter No.2 European Social Indicators

25

Source Year A B CH D DK E

POPULATION

Number, July 1 (000s) DEMTSDB 1993 7,913.8 10,084.5 6,988.9 81,338.0 5,189.4 39,082.5

Annual growth (‰ ) DEMTSDB 1992/93 9.7 3.9 6.5 4.5 3.7 -0.1

Net migration (‰ of pop.) DEMTSDB 1993 8.1 2.6 3.9 5.7 2.8 -1.3

Total Fertility Rate CoE 1993 1.51 1.62C 1.56 1.28 1.75 1.24

Crude Death Rate (‰ ) DEMTSDB 1993 10.3 10.6 9.4 11.0 12.1 8.7

HOUSEHOLDS AND FAMILIES

Mean private household size HFSDB 1991 2.54 2.49 2.33C 2.25G 2.25 3.27

Single parent families (%) EUROSTAT 1990/91 14.6 15.4G 20.8 7.9

1-person households (% of pop.) HFSDB 1991 11.5 11.3 13.4C 15.3F 15.3 4.1

Total First Marriage Rate CoE 1992 0.58 0.65 0.71 0.64G 0.61 0.66B

Total Divorce Rate CoE 1992 0.34 0.39 0.36 0.30G 0.42

Births out-of-wedlock- % all live births- per 10000 non-marr. women 15-44

DEMTSDBDEMTSDB

19921992

25.2214

11.1D

1536.271

14.998FG

46.5B

45610.0B

LABOUR FORCE

Total active population (000s) OECD 1991 3,607 4,210 3,602 30,576G 2,903 15,382

Agriculture (%) OECD 1991 7.9 2.7 5.5 3.2G 5.4 10.4

Industry (%) OECD 1991 36.9 28.1 34.4 38.,6G 26.0 32.3

Services (%) OECD 1991 55.2 69.3 60.0 58.2G 68.6 57.3

Total unemployment (%) 2 1994 6.5 10.0 4.7 8.4 10.3 24.1

Women’s participation (% of civilianactive population)

OECD 1991 41.1 42.7 38.3 41.5G 46.9 35.9

INCOME

Income distribution:- lowest 20 %- highest 10 %

IBRDIBRD

various;1978-89 7.9

21.55.2

29.87.0

24.45.4

22.38.3

21.8

Poverty (%) [50% of average equiva-lent expenditures]

EUROSTAT ca.1988

6.6 12.0G 4.2 17.5

EDUCATION

Total education enrolment (000s) OECD 1992 1,372.6B 1,813.7 1,121.9 10,454.8G 947.8 8,638.5

Primary education enrolment (%) OECD 1992 27.0 41.0 38.9 24.8G 34.5 30.8

Secondary education enrolment (%) OECD 1992 54.4 45.1 49.7 57.5G 48.5 54.1

Higher education enrolment (%) OECD 1992 18.7 13.9 11.5 17.7G 17.0 15.1

Female higher educ. enrolment (%) OECD 1992 44.7 49.3 36.8 40.8G 50.9 51.2

Public expend. on educ. (% of GDP) IBRD 1990 5.0 5.7 5.0 4.1G 7.0 3.9

HEALTH

Infant mortality rate (‰ ) DEMTSDB 1993 6.5 8.3 5.6 5.8 6.6A 7.6

Male life expectancy 65 (years) WHO 1991 14.9 14.2 15.6 14.2 14.4 15.5C

Female life expectancy 65 (years) WHO 1991 18.3 18.6 20.1 18.0 18.1 19.2C

Public expend. on health (% of GDP) IBRD 1990 7.1 7.3 7.1 8.4G 6.3 5.2

SOCIAL PROTECTION

Social protection expenditure (% ofGDP at market prices)

EUROSTAT 1993 27.6 31.0 33.2 24.0

Social protection expenditure percapita (ECU)

EUROSTAT 1993 4,930.2 6,234.7 7,379.9 2,508.0

ECONOMIC INDICATORS

GDP per capita at current prices andcurrent PPPs (US dollars)

OECD 1993 19,118 19,510 23,189 18,506 19,150 13,304

Real GDP per cap., ann. growth (%) OECD 1993/92 -1.4 -1.4 -1.8 -1.8 1.1 -1.2

Annual inflation rate (%) 2 1994 3.0 2.4 0.9 3.0 2.0 4.8

Introduction, notes and abbreviations on page 21

European Social Indicators EURODATA Newsletter No.2

26

F GR I IRL L N NL P S SF UK

57,666.8 10,368.2 57,516.6 3,563.3 398.1 4,324.8 15,290.2 9,867.7 8,771.6 5,066.4 58,191.0

5.1 5.3 0.0 4.0 14.1 5.8A 6.9 0.2 11.8 4.8 3.2

1.9 4.8 0.1 0.6A 10.5 2.2A 3.1 0.6 9.4 2.0 1.4

1.65 1.35 1.25A 2.02A 1.70 1.86 1.57 1.53 2.0 1.82 1.79A

9.2 9.4 9.4 8.7A 9.8 10.4A 9.0 10.7 11.1 10.1 11.3

2.57C 3.12 2.83 3.34 2.61 2.40C 2.40 3.12 2.14C 2.42C 2.48

10.7 5.7 6.4 10.8 12.2 12.2 12.5 16.0

10.3 5.1 5.9 9.6 14.2 4.4 17.6 10.4

0.53 0.59 0.66C 0.67B 0.67 0.49B 0.63 0.87 0.50 0.56 0.58B

0.33B 0.12 0.07 0.36 0.40B 0.29 0.48 0.43 0.44B

31.8B

3622.6 6.3C 18.0

20412.7 42.9

46112.5133

15.6B 48.2B

55728.9288

30.9381

24,620 4,185B 24,899 1,334 169.5 2,126 7,011 5,142 4,552 2,559 28,290

5.6 22.2 8.3 13.7 3.2 5.9 4.5 17.3 3.2 8.5 2.2

28.8 25.7 31.5 28.6 30.1 23.6 25.2 33.3 28.2 29.3 28.0

65.6 52.1 60.2 57.7 66.7 70.5 70.3 49.4 68.5 62.2 69.9

12.6 9.4 (1993) 11.3 15.1 3.5 5.2 7.0 7.0 9.8 18.4 9.2

44.2 37.1C 37.7 32.5 37.4 46.1 40.1 44.3 48.1H 47.7 43.1

5.626.1

6.825.3

6.221.2

8.221.9

8.020.8

6.321.7

4.627.8

14.9 20.8 22.0 16.4 9.2 6.2 26.5 17.0

11,643.6 1,810.1 9,861.6 866.9 50.4D 833.4 3,025.3 2,049.3B 1,486.7 1,012.6 11,596.3

34.8 43.7 30.4 47.6 49.1D 37.0 36.8 50.0B 40.4 38.8 43.2

49.4 46.6 53.9 42.2 48.9D 46.4 49.1 41.6B 45.6 44.1 47.9

15.8 9.8 15.7 10.3 2.0D 16.6 14.1 8.4B 13.9 17.2 8.9

53.8 52.2 49.3 47.6 35.8D 53.1 45.7 60.1B 54.0 52.7 47.0

4.9 3.6 5.4 3.6 6.9 5.6 4.7 4.6 5.4 5.6 4.2

6.6 8.3 7.4 6.6A 6.0 5.9A 6.2 8.6 4.8 4.4 6.3

16.2 15.9 15.1C 13.4 14.5 14.9 14.6 13.7 15.4C 14.1 14.3

20.9 18.4 19.1C 17.1 18.6 19.0 19.2 17.1 19.2C 18.2 18.0

9.8 4.7 7.3 6.9 5.1 7.5 7.2 5.6 8.3 6.7 5.3

30.9 16.3 25.8 21.4 24.9 33.6 18.3 25.4A 27.8

5,725.9 1,202.2 3,834.0 2,423.0 6,677.5 5,806.4 1,336.8 5,759.6A 3,846.8

18,702 8,785 17,823 13,852 28,359 19,060 17,587 11,815 16,823 15,583 17,030

-1.5 0.1 -1.0 3.6 1.6 2.8 -0.4 -1.2 -3.1 -2.1 2.3

1.7 10.9 3.7 2.4 2.2 1.4 2.7 5.2 2.2 1.1 2.4

Introduction, notes and abbreviations on page 21

EURODATA Newsletter No.2 Country Profile

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Italy is one of the world's leadingwestern industrial nations today andis competing with France for fourthplace. Practically no other Europeancountry has experienced such arapid transformation from a de-stroyed, strongly agrarian societyinto a modern industrial state.The "Repubblica Italiana" is one ofthe founding members of the Euro-pean Union. No other member statehas such extreme spatial disparitiesas does this mediterranean country.It is not just 1200 km that lie be-tween the north and the south; theper-capita gross domestic product ismore than twice as high in thenorth and the birth rate is approxi-mately 50% higher than in thesouth. A harmonisation of thesedisparities is not in sight.

Regional DisparitiesThe spatial disparities in Italy areso enormous that even all Europeanregions taken together do not ex-ceed these dimensions. If one looksat the spatial disparities in Europein terms of unemployment rates bythe late 1980s, 6 Italian regionsrank among the 20 regions with thehighest rates; at the same time,Lombardy belongs to those 20%that have the lowest unemploymentrates (Pohl 1995).Doubtlessly, Italy's marked north-south divide is the result of a longhistorical process. The question is,however, how far back its rootsreach. When Italy was part of theRoman Empire, it had a uniformsocial system (Vivanti 1980). Theinvasion of the Langobards broughtabout a division of the country intoa "barbarian" part and a Byzantinepart. Consequently, the north devel-oped into a society open for mod-ernisation and innovation, while the

history of the South was character-ised by exploitation and feudalism(King 1992). This division wasnever overcome and is not onlyvisible in statistical indicators, butalso in the relationship betweennorth and south Italians. The emer-gence and the success of the LegaLombarda is an expression of thisrelationship.Another question in this context isto what extent regional disparitieshave changed since the completionof the Italian national state in 1870.On the part of the state, many at-

tempts have been made to reducethese disparities. Transfer paymentsand support of the regional econo-mies were meant to strengthen es-pecially the south's economy. It isobvious that despite comprehensivemeasures no harmonisation worthmentioning has taken place. Theshare of the Mezzogiorno in thegross national product, for instance,has not changed and accounts forabout 25% (Dunford 1988).If one looks at the harmonised un-employment rates published byEUROSTAT on the basis of the 95Italian provinces during the past tenyears as an example, it becomesevident that the imbalances haveeven increased. The variation coef-ficient of the unemployment rate ofall Italian provinces has increasedsubstantially since 1983.Whereas in Italy as a whole the un-employment rate rose from 8.5% to11.1% during 1983-1993, this in-

Table: Statistical comparisons

Year Italytotal

North/Central

Mezzo-giorno

EU-12

Population (000s) 1991 56778 36241 20537 344704

Inhab. per km2 1991 188.5 203.3 166.9 146

Rates per 1000 inhab. Births Deaths

19921992

9.99.5

8.310.2

12.58.3

11.810.1

Rates per 1000 births infant mortality Stillbirths

19921991

8.45.5

6.54.6

10.46.5

7.55.1A

Age structure under 15 (%) 15-64 (%) 65 and older (%)

199119911991

16.368.914.8

13.770.016.3

20.667.112.3

18.267.314.5

GDP (in PPS) Per capita Growth (%)

19911990-1

16174+6.9

18960+6.9

11259+6.9

14752+7.0

Sectoral employment Agriculture (%) Industry (%) Services (%)

199119911991

8.231.959.9

5.535.359.2

14.424.061.6

6.433.360.3

Economic activity rate Total (%) Female (%)

19921992

42.430.9

44.634.0

38.825.6

54.6B

42.6B

Unemployment Total (%) Females (%)

19921992

11.517.3

7.111.1

20.431.6

9.411.5

Sources: EUROSTAT and national statistical publications.Notes: A: Year 1989; B: Year 1991

Country Profile EURODATA Newsletter No.2

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crease of almost 3% presents itselfdifferently when looked at in termsof regions. The provinces in thesouth bear the main burden. Whilethe increase in the unemploymentrate in the north was only insignifi-cant, unemployment rates in thesouth rose dramatically. Sicily isparticularly affected with an unem-ployment rate that nearly doubledfrom 11.7% to 23.1%. On the otherhand, the unemployment rate in theprovinces of the north-east fell from7% to 4.8%.In addition, the harmonised unem-ployment rate of 1993 illustrated inthe map shows that a simple north-south-divide is not sufficient to de-scribe regional structures. Theprovinces in the north-east play aspecial role: with few exceptions,they have particularly low unem-ployment rates. The rise of this re-gion finds expression in the term ofthe so-called "Third Italy" (Bag-nasco 1977, Bianchini 1991, Loda1989); however, distinct boundariescannot be drawn. These particularlydynamic and economically strongprovinces are characterised by en-terprises with an extremely flexibleproduction and market adjustmentand are, in contrast to the old in-dustrialised north-west, free ofrather cumbersome industries thatheavily depend on economic trends.

Territorial StructureItaly is made up of 20 regionswhich themselves consist of 95provinces. The regions were createdin 1970 by law and have had ad-ministrations of their own since1976. Via general elections a re-gional council is elected which thenelects a regional government ("Gi-unta regionale").

Statistical SourcesThe largest part of data relevant forsocial sciences are published by theIstituto Statistico Nazionale(ISTAT). Its programme of publi-cations is very comprehensive andwell structured. Particularly in pub-lications referring to populationcensuses, detailed regional data arepublished. The "Bolletino Mensiledi Statistica" is a monthly source for

the most significant statisticalbenchmark figures, as is the series"Indicatori Mensili", which con-tains a large number of time series.In the Statistical Yearbook as wellas in 23 additional series completeannual data are published in printedform.The latest population census wascarried out in 1991 and has mean-while been published completely.Regional data are available in 20regional or 95 provincial publica-tions and can be obtained in ma-chine-readable form on diskette.

Further reading and references:

Bagnasco, A. (1977): Tre Italie. Laproblematica territoriale dello sviluppoitaliano. Bologna: Il Mulino.Bianchini, F. (1991): Tre Italie. Modelor Myth? In: Ekistics, 350/351:336-345.Dunford, M.F. (1988): Capital, theState and Regional Development. Lon-don (=Studies in Society and Space, 1).King, A.D. (1990): Urbanism, Coloni-alism, and the World-Economy: Cul-tural and Spatial Foundations of theWorld- Economy. London, New York.Loda, M. (1989): Das "Dritte Italien".Zu den Spezifika der peripherenEntwicklung in Italien. In: Geo-graphische Zeitschrift, 77(3):180-194.Mignone, M.B.(1995): Italy Today. A

Map: Unemployment in the Provinces of Italy, 1993 (Source: EUROSTAT)

National Statistical Institute: Istituto Statistico Nazionale (ISTAT), ViaCesare Balbo, 16, 00184 Roma, ( +39-6-46733102 (3-4-5), Fax+39- 6-46735198Publications are also available from: Casalini libri s.p.a., Via Bene-detto da Maiano,3, 50014 Fiesole (Firenze), ( +39-55-599941, Fax+39-55-598895

Government Publications Sales Office: The offices are decentralised.Each Region has an office. See for a list in each recent publicationof ISTAT.

Social Science Research Institutions: Istituto Universitario Europeo, Viadei Roccettini, 5-9, 50016 San Domenico di Fiesole (Firenze) ((+39) 55 477931, Fax +39-55-4685298Archivio Dati e Programmi per le Scienze Sociali (ADPSS), Via G.Cantoni, 4, 20144 Milano, ( (+39) 2 4986187, Fax +39-2-463291Società Italiana di Economia, Demografia e Statistica, CasellaPostale 12003, 00100 RomaFondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, Via Romagnosi, 3, 20121 Mi-lano ( +39-2-874175L'Istituto Carlo Cattaneo, Via Stefano, 11, 40100 Bologna ( +39-51-239766

Social Science and Political Journals: Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica(three/year, ISSN 0048-8402), Stato e Mercato (three/year, ISSN0392-9701), Polis (three/year, ISSN 1120-9488), Rassegna Italianadi Sociologia (quarterly, ISSN 0486-0349), il Mulino (six/year, ISSN0027-3120)

EURODATA Newsletter No.2 Country Profile

29

Country in Transition. New York (=Stud. in Modern European History, 16).Pohl, J. (1995): Italien dreigeteilt?Wirtschaftliche, politische und sozio-kulturelle Disparitäten südlich der Al-pen. In: Geographische Rundschau,47(3):150-155.Putnam, R.D. (1992): Making Democ-racy Work. Civic Tradition in ModernItaly. Princeton: University PressVivanti, C. (1980): Zerrissenheit undGegensätze. In: ROMANO, R. (Hrsg.):Die Gleichzeitigkeit des Ungleichzeiti-gen. Fünf Studien zur Geschichte Itali-ens. Frankfurt/Main, 139-225.

Noticeboard EURODATA Newsletter No.2

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British parliamentarians atti-tudes to European IntegrationIn 1994 a UK Economic and SocialResearch Council survey of BritishConservative parliamentarians at-titudes to European Integration wascarried out at the University ofSheffield, England. The completedatasets are available from the UKESRC Data Archive. A presentationof some 200 cross-tabulations fromthe survey has now been mountedon the World Wide Web athttp://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/academic/N-Q/pol/EUROTORY.HTMLMore information: Steve Ludlam, De-partment of Politics, Elmfield, 132Northumberland Road, Sheffield S102TY, Fax +44-114-2739769, Email:[email protected]

Comparative European socialresearch: Selected new articlesBerlage, M.: TelecommunicationsDevelopment in Central and EasternEurope. In: International Political Sci-ence Review 16 (1995), 283-304.Bicanic, I.: The Economic Causes ofNew State Formation During Transi-tion. In: East European Politics andSocieties 9 (1995), 2-21.Blanpain, B. (Ed.): Strikes and lock-outs in Industrialized MarketEconomies. = Bulletin of ComparativeLabour Relations 29 (1995).Clasen, J. & A. Gould: Stability andchange in welfare states: Germanyand Sweden in the 1990s. In: Policyand Politics 23 (1995), 1989-202.Masuy-Stroobant, G. & C. Gourbin:Infant Health and Mortality Indica-tors. Their Accuracy for Monitoringthe Socio-Economic Development inthe Europe of 1994. In: EuropeanJournal of Population 11 (1995), 13-62.Mertig, A.G. & R.E. Dunlap: PublicApproval of Environmental Protec-tion and Other New Social MovementGoals in Western Europe and the US.In: International Journal of PublicOpinion Research 7 (1995), 145-156.Mingione, E.: Labour market segmen-tation and informal work in southernEurope. In: European Urban and Re-gional Studies 2 (1995), 121-144.Perrons, D.: Economic strategies, wel-fare regimes and gender inequality inemployment in the European Union.

In: European Urban and RegionalStudies 2 (1995), 99-120.Sartori, G.: Bien comparer, mal com-parer. In: Revue Internationale dePolitique Comparée 1 (1994), 19-36.Yair, G.: ‘Unite Unite Europe’ Thepolitical and cultural structures ofEurope as reflected in the EurovisionSong Contest. In: Social Networks 17(1995), 147-161.

New EUROSTAT NewsletterThe statistical office for the Euro-pean Communities (Eurostat) hasrecently launched the first edition ofthe Research for Official StatisticsNewsletter. Aimed at statistical re-searchers in the public and privatesector and users of statistical infor-mation, the Newsletter will reporton the activities of the EuropeanCommission, particularly high-lighting the DOSES (Developmentof Statistical Expert Systems) pro-gramme. Research for Official Sta-tistics will be published twice a yearin June and December.For more information, please contact:Research for Official Statistics, Euros-tat, Room C5-98, Jean Monnet Build-ing, L-2920 Luxembourg. Phone +352 -4301 34756, Fax +352 - 4301 34771

International Social SciencesInstitute (Edinburgh)Non-Stipendiary Visiting Associ-ateships „BOUNDARIES ANDIDENTITIES“, September 1995 -December 1996.The International Social SciencesInstitute invites applications fromestablished scholars wishing to be-come Visiting Associates, and espe-cially from academics interested incontributing to discussion of its1995-1996 theme, Boundaries andIdentities.Visiting Associates are providedwith office accommodation and ac-cess to research facilities (incl. ac-cess to internet/www). It is envis-aged that they will normally bebased in Edinburgh for a minimumperiod of about three months, butproposals for shorter visits will beconsidered. The position is non-stipendiary.

The Institute has been establishedby the Faculty of Social Sciences aspart of its new School for HigherStudies. The mandate of the Inter-national Social Sciences Institute isto encourage exchange of ideasbetween visiting scholars and mem-bers of staff in the University ofEdinburgh. The Director is Profes-sor Malcolm Anderson, who is cur-rently engaged in a research projecton the External and Internal Fron-tiers of the European Union, a ma-jor project funded by the Economicand Social Research Council in theUnited Kingdom.Applications, by letter accompanied bycurriculum vitae and outline researchproposal, should be sent to: Dr. GedMartin, Deputy Director (Visiting Pro-gramme), International Social SciencesInstitute, Chisholm House, 1 SurgeonSquare, High School Yards, EdinburghEH1 1LZ, Scotland

esrc newsletterThe „European Consortium for So-ciological Research“ has started topublish a newsletter. The followingtext is taken from the editorial:„The goal of the ECSR is to con-tribute to the development of thediscipline by facilitating the ex-change of ideas, data and people.On the European level, cooperationhas been growing rapidly during thelast years. Several large-scale com-parative projects have been com-pleted. European data sets and databases have grown in importance.Cooperation is also enhanced by thesubstantive increase in networksand research programs, on theEuropean level as well as within thelarger regions of Europe.The development of cooperationrequires information on potentialresearch partners, programs, andfunding opportunities. It is the maingoal of the ECSR Newsletter to fa-cilitate the flow of information nec-essary for this process.The ECSR Newsletter will of coursepublish any news of interest fromthe Consortium itself. However, inorder to strengthen contact betweenmember institutions, we hope topresent essential information from

EURODATA Newsletter No.2 Noticeboard

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the members themselves, regardingproject plans, research staff, futureapplications, and other relevantmaterial. The editors welcome allsorts of news from member institu-tions and contact persons.Furthermore, the Newsletter willattempt to bring advertisements onseminars, and calls for proposalsfrom other research agencies thanthe Consortium, such as COST orthe European Science Foundation.“ecsr newsletter is available free ofcharge. Editors: F. Engelstad & J. Rog-stad, Munthesgt. 31, 0260, Oslo, Nor-way. Fax +47-22-431385, [email protected]

New MZES Working PapersThe following working papers havejust been released and can be or-dered from MZES, University ofMannheim, D-68131 Mannheim.Fax +49-621-292 8435.Rieger, E.: Politik supranationalerIntegration. Die Europäische Ge-meinschaft in institutionentheore-tischer Perspektive. (AB I, No. 9) DM5,--Henning, C., & P. Uusikylä: The Im-pact of Communication Networks onPolitical Bargaining among Publicand Private Organizations. (AB II,No. 10) DM 5,-König, T.: From Intergovernmental-ism to Party Politics? An Institu-tional Power Analysis of EuropeanMulti-Chamber Legislation from1958 to 1995.(AB II, No.11) DM 5,-Kohler-Koch, B.: Regions as PoliticalActors in the Process of EuropeanIntegration - A Research Design. (ABIII, No. 9) DM 5,--Kohler-Koch, B.: The Strength ofWeakness. The Transformation ofGovernance in the EU. (AB III, No.10)DM 5,--Jachtenfuchs, M. & B.Kohler-Koch:The Transformation of Governancein the European Union. (AB III, No.11) DM 5,--Jachtenfuchs, M. & B.Kohler-Koch:Regieren im dynamischen Mehre-benensystem. (AB III, No. 12) DM 5,--

CD-ROM: 25 years British„Social Trends“Social Trends has been publishedannually by the Central Statistical

Office since 1970. It draws togetherstatistics from a wide range of gov-ernment departments to paint abroad picture of society today, andthe ways in which it is changing.Social Trends on CD-ROM providesa complete archive of the first 25years of publication of SocialTrends. It runs under MicrosoftWindows version 3.1 or later. Forordering contact the CSO SalesDesk on Phone +44-171-2706081.

EUROPA WWW-ServerThe European Commission hasopened a World-Wide-Web servernamed Europa on the world Inter-net computer network. Its aim is toprovide people with clear, compre-hensive and up-to-date informationon the objectives, institutions andpolicies of the European Union. TheEuropa server is a pilot project de-veloped by DG X at the Commis-sion, in cooperation with the calcu-lation centre, the spokesman serviceand the information services of thevarious Directorates General. At itslaunch, the Europa server contains:general information on the EU (in-stitutions, historical chronology,questions and answers of generalinterest); information on the Com-mission (tasks, composition,speeches by the president, organi-sation, guide to document-access);service documents by the spokes-person (Rapid service); an "ABC"on EU policies, giving access tobroad public information emanatingfrom the Directorate Generals; in-formation on access to the Commis-sion's data bases (I'm Europe, ISPO,Cordis, Eurobases, Eurostat, Eur-op, etc.).Europa can be accessed athttp://www.cec.lu.

Forthcoming Events:Employment Week ‘95. A WorkingFuture for Europe (Third EuropeanConference and Exhibition), 7-9 Nov1995, Palais de Congres, Brussels, Bel-gium. Info: Touchstone Exhibitions andConferences Ltd, 4 Red Lion Street,Richmond-upon-Thames, Surrey TW9

1RW, United Kingdom. Phone +44-181-332 0044, Fax +44-181-3320874Euroconference: Social Policy in anEnvironment of Insecurity, 8-11 Nov1995, Lisbon, Portugal. Info: Fax +43-1-587397310, [email protected]’95: International Conferenceon New Techniques and Technologiesfor Statistics, 19-22 November 1995,Bonn, Germany. Info: Christine Harms,Fax +49-2241-142472, [email protected],http://orgwis.gmd.de/explora/ntts.htmlSocial Exclusion and Social Integra-tion in Europe: Theoretical and Pol-icy Perspectives on Poverty and Ine-quality (from the series „EuropeanSociety or European Societies“), 26-31March 1996, Blarney, Ireland. Info:ECSR, Secretary (Fredrik Engelstad),Fax +47-22-431385, [email protected] Changing Europe in a ChangingWorld: Urban and Regional Issues(Call for Papers), 11-14 April 1996,Exeter, UK. Info: Kathy Wood, Univ. ofDurham, Fax +44-191-3742456New Migration in Europe: SocialConstructions and Social Realities,18-20 April 1996, Utrecht, The Neth-erlands. Info: ERCOMER (EuropeanResearch Centre on Migration and Eth-nic Relations), P.O. Box 80.140, NL-3508TC Utrecht. Phone +31-30-539220, Fax +31-30-539280, [email protected]://www.ruu.nl/ercomer/conf2.htmlEuropean Social Science HistoryConference, 9-11 May 1996, De Leeu-wenhorst Noordwijkerhout, The Neth-erlands. Info: ESSHC c/o CAOS, W.G.Plein 475, 1054 SH Amsterdam, TheNetherlands. Fax +31 - 20 - 689 0981The Multilingual and MulticulturalCity, 22-18 June 1996, Copenhagen,Denmark. Info: Center for MulticulturalStudies, Royal Danish School of Edu-cational Studies, Emdrupborg, DK-2400 Copenhagen NV. Fax: +45 - 39 -692550. [email protected] [email protected] International Conference on So-cial Science Methodology (Call forPapers and Themes), 1-4 July 1996,Essex, UK. Info: David Rose, Fax +44-1206-873151, [email protected] and History: EuropeanIdentity at the Millenium (Fifth Con-ference of the International Society forthe Study of European Ideas), (ISSEI),19-24 August 1996, University for Hu-manist Studies, Utrecht, Nether-lands.Info: Conference secretariat, Lenettevan Buren, University for Humanist

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Studies, P.O. Box 797, 3500 ATUtrecht, The Netherlands, Phone +31-30-390142 (after 10.10.95: 2390142),Fax +31-30-390170 (after 10.10.95:2390170)2nd International Conference onSurvey and Statistical Computing,11-13 Sep 1996, London.Info: RandyBanks, Association for Survey Com-puting, ESRC Research Centre on Mi-cro-Social Change, University of Essex,Colchester CO4 3SQ. Phone +44-1206-873067, Fax +44-1206-873151,[email protected] Conference on Regional andUrban Statistics (SCORUS), 14-17Oct 1996, Madrid, Spain. Info: Mr.Antonio Martinez López, Instituto Na-cional de Estadística, Paseo de la Cas-tellana 183, E-28046 Madrid. Fax +34-1-5837918

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EURODATA Research ArchiveThe EURODATA Research Archive is an infrastructural unit of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Re-search (MZES) at the University of Mannheim (Germany). The archive has two basic objectives which are closelyrelated to each other:• to provide an adequate data infrastructure for the Centre’s comparative research on European societies and

European integration;• to contribute to the establishment of a European infrastructure for comparative social research.EURODATA’s work is structured by own medium-term development and three-annual work plans, relating to threeareas of activity:• the systematic and continuous provision of metainformation on official statistics and social science data from the

private sector (information archive);• the development and maintenance of a library with statistical publications from statistical institutes, ministries,

para-official institutions and certain intermediary organisations from the private sector (statistics library);• the provision of computerised information, with a particular focus on the development of an integrated file sys-

tem with historical time series and instituitional information (file archive).

EURODATA Research ArchiveMannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES)D-68131 MannheimPhone: +49-621-292 8441Fax: +49-621-292 8435E-Mail: [email protected] and Staff: Peter Flora (Scientific Director), Franz Kraus (Managing Director), Michael Quick, Franz Rothen-

bacher. Secretariat: Marianne Schneider

EURODATA NewsletterThis newsletter is intended to contribute to facilitate data-based comparative research on European societies andpolities. It is a product of the EURODATA Research Archive and has three major objectives:• to disseminate information on the research activities of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research,

with particular emphasis on data-generating cross-national research the archive is involved in;• to provide information on European data infrastructures and important developments;• to provide a forum for the exchange of information on ongoing comparative social research on European socie-

ties and on European integration.The newsletter is intended to be an open forum: contributions from other research institutes and individual re-searchers are always welcome. The EURODATA Newsletter will, as a rule, be divided into eight sections: Featurereports substantive findings from on-going cross-national research. Data Infrastructure reports on data institutionssuch as data archives, governmental and non-governmental organisations, and covers historical developments andcurrent modes of access to data. Research Institutes presents profiles of research institutions with a cross-nationalorientation. Research Groups and Projects informs on cooperations and networks in comparative social research onEurope. Computer deals with specific aspects of electronic information processing and the use of electronic net-works in comparative research. Country Profile provides background information on individual countries. Euro-pean Social Indicators gives a picture of the social structure of European societies. Noticeboard provides generalnews including information about new statistics, recent books and studies, conference reports and announcements.Published by: Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES)

EURODATA Research ArchiveD - 68131 Mannheim

Editors: Franz Kraus, Michael Quick, Franz RothenbacherManaging editor: Michael Quick

Phone: +49-621-292 8436Fax: +49-621-292 8435E-mail: [email protected]

Translations and linguistic editing: Marianne SchneiderPrinted by: Profil-Print, 63110 RodgauInternet access: http://www.sowi.uni-mannheim.de/eurodata/newsletter.html

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EURODATA Newsletter appears twice a year, normally in spring and autumn. It is distributed free of charge to social scienceinstitutions and libraries. Contributions, comments and general notes are welcome. Parts of the newsletter may freely be repro-duced, but please acknowledge the source and send a copy to the editor.

ISSN 0947-9260

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