International Survey Center

Surveys and statistical analysis in many nations

Academic, scientific, unbiased, non-profit

The International Survey Center conducts research on social, economic and political issues using survey data from large, representative national samples from many nations. Most of our work is addressed to sociologists, economists and political scientists; it is based on rigorous multivariate statistical methods and is regularly published in sociology's leading academic journals (examples). We also do commissioned  surveys and reports. Much of our data is freely available. ISC principals are Professor Jonathan Kelley (Director; Adjunct Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno and previously Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne); Professor Krzysztof Zagorski (Kozminski University, Warsaw; formerly at the University of Melbourne), and Dr Joanna Sikora (Australian National University).

International Social Science Survey

Our survey ATTITUDES TOWARD STEM CELLS AND CLONING 7 is now underway.

This is our 21st large national survey. The first was in 1984.

Warmest thanks to survey respondents!

Our next survey EDUCATION AND THE FAMILY will be underway shortly.

International Survey of Economic Attitudes

The International Survey of Economic Attitudes (ISEA) is a collaborative international project which conducts occasional surveys in half a dozen nations, each based on large, representative national samples. The first round was in 1991-1993 (Australia, Hungary, Poland) and the second round in 1994-1997 (Australia, Bulgaria, Finland, Poland, and the Netherlands). The third round is in the planning stage. Jonathan Kelley and Krzysztof Zagorski are the principal investigators. We welcome new members.

Data

Many older ISSS datasets are freely available for academic and teaching use, subject to a few conditions. The data cover a wide variety of topics, especially in sociology, demography, labor economics, and political science.  The data are available for downloading here. They are SPSS "portable" files, which are easily read by most other statistical analysis programs. Codebooks are also available here.

Especially useful are the 2AF Secondary Analysis Files from several of our cross-national projects. These data have been carefully worked over to make them comparable between nations and to make them user-friendly, so that secondary analysis is very easy. The two sets so far available are spin-offs of our articles. They document the analyses in the articles as well as including a variety of other variables suitable for further analyses.

 

Recent ISSS surveys are mostly subject to a data access fee, which we use to support our ongoing survey research program.

Publications

"Economic Development Reduces Tolerance for Inequality: A Comparative Analysis of 33 Nations"

in Charting the Globe: The International Social Survey Programme 1984-2009

edited by Max Haller, Roger Jowell and Tom Smith. London: Routledge (2009).

Jonathan Kelley and M.D.R. Evans

Do conceptions of just rewards vary with economic development? To investigate this question we use the 1999-2000 "Inequality-III" round of the International Social Science Project together with other data in the World Inequality Study. There are 30 countries and 19 568 individual respondents in the full-time labor force. We measure inequality by the Gini coefficient for the general public's report of the legitimate earnings for their own occupation. OLS and multilevel analyses show patterns of influences very similar to those found in earlier research, with one striking exception. By far the most important influence, not previously documented across so many countries, is the prosperity of the nation: people in poor nations are much more accepting of inequality than are people in prosperous nations. If this cross-sectional pattern reflects developmental trends, as is likely, then it seems that economic development creates equalitarian attitudes. However, true egalitarianism is not held as ideal in any country, and so is not an appropriate goal for public policy. Instead the ideal level of inequality differs among countries. These ideals are a more appropriate benchmark for policy. We suggest that these benchmarks, available here for 150 nations, should be the starting point for future assessments of income inequality.

Preprint available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1305394

“Consequences of Divorce for Childhood Education: Australia, Canada, and the USA, 1940–1990."

Comparative Sociology 8(1): 105–146. 2009.

MDR Evans, Jonathan Kelley, and Richard Wanner.

Parental divorce imposes a small but significant educational disadvantage on American children. Does this generalize across nations and over time? We analyze representative national samples from Australia (n=29,443) and Canada (n=28,266), together with US General Social Survey data (n=32,380). Using OLS and logistic regression with robust standard errors, we estimate models controlling many potentially confounding variables. Divorce costs seven-tenths of a year of education, mainly by reducing secondary school completion. Importantly, it has become more damaging in recent cohorts. Because this holds in all three nations, the explanation probably lies in common circumstances of, and parallel changes in, modern industrial societies.

Preprint available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1305327

"Support for Mothers' Employment at Home: Conflict between Work and Family"

International Journal of Public Opinion Research 21: 98-110. 2009
Earlier versions were presented to the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. Montreal, Canada
and the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Montreal, Canada.

S.M.C. Kelley, C.G.E. Kelley, M.D.R. Evans, and Jonathan Kelley. 

The conflict between family life and paid work outside the home creates difficult trade-offs. In most developed nations, few men or women think that mothers with young children are best off working full-time. But another alternative reduces the conflict: paid work at home. Data from a large representative national sample of Australia (n=1324) show that public support for maternal employment is fully 30 percentage points greater if the work is done at home. This difference is even larger for those who believe that there is great conflict between work and family, but vanishes for those who see little conflict. Structural equation analyses show significant social differences in levels of support, mainly reflecting different perceptions of conflict between work and family.

Preprint available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1305279

“Trends in Women’s Labor Force Participation in Australia: 1984-2002”

Social Science Research 37(1):287-310. 2008.

MDR Evans and Jonathan Kelley. 

Women’s workforce participation increased strongly over the 1980s and 1990s, especially among middle aged wives. Multivariate analysis of IsssA data (N=9412) reveals large compositional changes and a trend for succeeding cohorts of women to work more than their predecessors, but few if any period effects. Among the compositional changes, rising women’s education and falling fertility substantially elevate women’s workforce participation and hours worked. No clear time effects were associated with particular policy initiatives. Importantly, interaction tests suggest that the effects of education and of family situation have not changed over time. Finally, family of origin and religiosity have both direct and indirect effects.

Available in libraries and from the publisher

"Economic Change and the Legitimation of Inequality:
The Transition From Socialism to the Free Market in Poland and Hungary, 1987-1994."

Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. (Vol. 22) 2005

Jonathan Kelley and Krzysztof Zagorski.

This article takes advantage of a unique historical opportunity, the transformation of Central-East Europe with the collapse of Communism, to address a fundamental question in the social justice-equity-legitimation research tradition: how strong is the link between a nation's economy and its citizens' normative judgments concerning income inequality? We argue (1) that the transition from a socialist economy to a free market economy should increase normative support for income inequality; (2) that to the extent that people perceive differences in pay actually to be large, they will believe more inequality to be morally legitimate; and (3) that normative support for income inequality will be higher among better educated people and among those in higher status jobs. We find that normative support for inequality increased dramatically. In Communist times the Polish and Hungarian publics favored less inequality than citizens of Western nations thought right; but within a decade after the fall of Communism they favored much more inequality than Westerners think right. These normative changes did not arise from socioeconomic or demographic change in population structure but in large part from perceived changes in actual income inequality. Our data are from the World Inequality Study, which pools data from the International Social Survey Programme and other projects; there are 18 representative national samples in six Central-East Europe nations (N=23,260) and, for comparison, 32 in Western nations (N=39,956).

 

Download working paper (460k PDF)

 

“Subjective Social Location: Data from 21 Nations.”

International Journal of Public Opinion Research. 16(1):3-38. 2004.

MDR Evans and Jonathan Kelley.

This paper investigates subjective social status using data from surveys collected from representative nationwide samples in 21 countries (N= 50,955). We find that in all societies there is a pronounced tendency to see oneself as in the middle of the social hierarchy; that this tendency holds among those at the top and bottom of the educational distribution, as well as among those actually in the middle; and that this tendency holds in rich nations as well as poor ones. The objective position of individuals, the wealth of nations, and the national level of unemployment all have substantial effects on subjective status. But their effects are muted by the tendency to see oneself as in the middle of the hierarchy. This has important implications for class identity and democracy.

Available in libraries and from the publisher

  Australian Economy and Society 2002: 
Religion, Morality, and Public Policy in International Perspective, 1984-2002 

MDR Evans and Jonathan Kelley

Sydney: Federation Press, 2004.  Pps xii + 375.  (Hardback/ ISBN 1862874514). 

Published 2004. Based on survey data from 1984 to 2002.  27,000 cases in Australia; more in  dozens of other nations.

This second volume in the Australian Economy and Society series focuses on attitudes, beliefs, and values. It is especially about worldviews and their effects on moral stances and public policy attitudes.

Religion, abortion, and sexuality were among the topics we asked about in the first IsssA survey in 1984. Since then, our IsssA surveys have replicated these questions and have developed new questions exploring attitudes towards genetic engineering of crops, research and treatment using foetal stem cells, cloning of people and animals, xenografts, cord blood usage, and both somatic and germ-line genetic therapy for humans. On all these questions, the IsssA provides a series of surveys of large, representative national samples, with over 27,000 cases for the longest-running series.

We open by describing the root causes of many other attitudes and values --religious belief in Australia, denominational differences, the transmission of religious belief from parent to child, attitudes toward evolution and the scientific worldview. Our aim is to discover to what extent people apply their traditional moral toolkits to assess the good and evil in these moral issues, both old and new, and to what degree they use different approaches or turn to different authorities. Using powerful multivariate statistics, we seek to discover the extent to which Australians’ moral views are rooted in family background, social structure, religion, and attitudes to science; to what degree they are influenced by formal education and scientific knowledge; to what extent they are instead based on deference to religious, medical, or scientific authorities; to what extent they reflect consequentialist reasoning about the outcomes; and to what degree they spring deductively from the worldviews themselves. We have also studied the ramifications into charity, national goals, and the links between religion and politics.

We find that money, self-interest, status, and power have little sway over these attitudes. Rather the data tell tales of beliefs and values; tales featuring priests and scientists; contrasting tales told by religion about the centrality of mankind in a world created by God, with tales told by science about the vastness of the universe and the evolution of our species by means of natural selection.

Table of contents.

Introduction (160k PDF)

Authors and contributors:

MDR Evans
Jonathan Kelley
with contributions by Nan Dirk de Graaf, Bruce Headey, Joanna Sikora and Esmail D. Zanjani

To get the book:

Australia: Available from booksellers or order directly from Federation Press for Australian $70 +  postage and handling. There is a schools only price of $40. 

North America: Order from Wm W Gaunt & Sons.

UK & Europe: Order from Willan Publishing. 

New Zealand: Order from Dunmore Press

Worcester Prize 2003
The World Association for Public Opinion Research
presented their Worcester Prize for the year's best article in the 
International Journal of Public Opinion Research
to
National Pride in the Developed World: Survey Data from 24 Nations

M.D.R. Evans and Jonathan Kelley

Congratulations are also due to the International Social Survey Program's Drafting Committee which designed the survey (Professor Max Haller chaired the design committee) and to the survey groups belonging to the ISSP who conducted the surveys in 24 nations.

Abstract

International Journal of Public Opinion Research 14(3): 303-338

Australian Economy and Society 2001: Education, Work and Welfare. 
MDR Evans and Jonathan Kelley
Sydney: Federation Press, 2002. Pps vi + 330.  (Hardback/ ISBN 1862873887). 

Published October, 2002. Data from 1984 to 2001 for Australia, with over 25,000 cases; more from dozens of other nations.

This book analyzes Australian economy and society, emphasizing changes over time, comparisons between social groups, and comparisons to other nations. We present our findings in a clear, concise and, we hope, readable style. However the results underpinning our findings are authoritative: reflecting rigorous, quantitative analyses by ourselves and other established academics, peer reviewed, and based on our large, representative national sample surveys of Australia and other nations. 

This first volume concerns education, work, and welfare in Australia over the last decades of the 20th century - topics that might be called "economic sociology", or "social economics", or "public policy". We begin with education, children's "work" of acquiring skills they will use to earn their living as adults. Next we explore the nature of work, the evolution industrial relations, and the links between work, public policy, welfare, and politics. Our analyses of these different topics are unified by common themes that run through the different topics, by a common methodological strategy, and by a shared source of survey evidence.

With  contributions by Peter Dawkins, Bruce Headey, Ben Jensen, Peter Krause, Craig Littler, Joanna Sikora, Maria Rebecca Valenzuela, Elizabeth Webster, and Krzysztof Zagorski

Table of contents.

To get the book:

Australia: Available from booksellers or  directly from Federation Press for Australian $70 + postage and handling. There is a schools only price of $40. RRP at better booksellers is $75.

North America: Order from Wm W Gaunt & Sons.

UK & Europe: Order from Willan Publishing. 

New Zealand: Order from Dunmore Press

"Public Opinion on Britain, a Directly Elected President, and an Australian Republic:  22 Years of Survey Evidence" 

Pps 113-130 and 243-252 in

Constitutional Politics: The Republic Referendum and the Future

(John Warhurst and Malcolm Mackerras, eds.) University of Queensland Press. 2002 

 Jonathan Kelley, M.D.R. Evans, Malcolm Mearns and Bruce Headey.

 

Abstract                   

Available from booksellers or directly from University of  Queensland Press. 

"Attitudes to Private and Public Ownership in East and West: Bulgaria, Poland, Australia and Finland, 1994/97.

The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 26(1):13-46. 2002

Joanna Sikora and Jonathan Kelley

   Available now in libraries and from the publisher 

“Strong Public Support for Treatment and Research Using Fetal Tissue,
Particularly Among Those Accepting the Scientific World-View" 

 Stem Cell Research and Development 11:711-717. 2002

MDR Evans, Esmail Zanjani and Jonathan Kelley

Available in libraries and from the publisher 

"When Human Life Begins: Public Perceptions."

Australian Social Monitor 5(1): 15-20.  2002.

Jonathan Kelley and M.D.R. Evans.

Extended with new data and reprinted in abbreviated form as
 "When Does Human Life Begin?"
 Australasian Science 23(9): 27-29.

Available now in libraries and from the publisher 

"Moral Views on the Use of Foetal Tissue Depend on the Source of the Cells."

Australian Social Monitor 5(3): 57-67. 2002.

Extended and reprinted in abbreviated form as

"Harvesting Foetal Tissue: Public Support Depends on the Source"

Australasian Science 23(10): 31-33

Kelley, Jonathan, M.D.R. Evans and Esmail D. Zanjani.

Available now in libraries and from the publisher 

Worldwide Attitudes

Worldwide Attitudes is an on-line academic journal that publishes brief, original research reports based on rigorous analysis of data from large, representative national sample surveys. These reports are drawn from sociology, demography, political science and economics.

Some of our projects

Public Attitudes Toward Genetic Engineering. The ISC began to study public attitudes to genetic engineering in 1994, in a project sponsored by the Commonwealth of Australia. This was based on an initial survey of 1328 respondents in our 1994/95 survey, a representative national sample of Australians in all states and territories. The questionnaire included more than 30 questions specifically on genetic engineering, systematically developed on the basis of a lengthy developmental pretest of more than 300 respondents. In addition the questionnaire included extensive batteries of items on factors that shape people's views on genetic engineering -- religious beliefs, attitudes to science in general, political attitudes, environmental attitudes, views on new medical technologies, education, occupation, etc. The report on these data is available here on on web site [1994/95 Report]. It offers a rigorous, dispassionate, statistical analysis of public opinion without any preconceived bias for or against it. Building on this initial analysis, we collected new data on several thousand respondents in subsequent years in Australia and, recently, some new data in the USA.

Who are we?

The ISC is an international collaboration -- a virtual organization, at home wherever its principal investigators are to be found -- originally at the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University and now in the USA and scattered throughout the world.

Principal sponsors of our research have been:

• The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, University of Melbourne, was our primary sponsor for many years.
• The Australian Research Council was the primary sponsor of our first survey, in 1984.
• The Australian Research Council supported Research Infrastructure Grant for the development of a pooled 1984-2001 IsssA file, and a second Research Infrastructure Grant for the pooled 30 nation World Inequality Study.
• The Research School of Social Sciences, Institute of Advanced Studies, the Australian National University, was the primary sponsor of six surveys between 1986 and 1997, and made substantial contributions to two more.
• The Standing Committee of Attorneys-General was the primary sponsor for two surveys and The Age newspaper (Melbourne) was the primary sponsor of another.
• Other sponsors of major Australian projects include the Department of Industry, Science and Technology; the National Center for Epidemiology and Population Health; the Marka Institute; the Christian Research Association; the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General; the Polish Academy of Sciences; Office of the Aged/Aged and Community Care, Commonwealth of Australia; and the Department of Employment, Workplace Relations, and Small Business, Commonwealth of Australia.
• Our main US sponsor is the Great Basin Foundation for Biomedical Research which has sponsored our surveys on public attitudes toward stem cells and cloning.

At 

Get our book Australian Attitudes: Social and Political Analysis from the National Social Science Survey

or our  Revolution and the Rebirth of Inequality: A Theory Applied to the National Revolution in Bolivia

or our  Australians' Attitudes to Overseas Aid: Report from the National Social Science Survey

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