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This report discusses the development and approval of GGS questionnaires, sample design guidelines, contextual database, use of administrative records, and minimum program of research. It also highlights the participation of various countries and upcoming changes at PAU.
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Progress since Prague • Development of instruments • Participation of countries • Efforts at fundraising • Forthcoming changes at PAU
Instruments: GGS questionnaire for wave I • After being presented in Prague, the core of the questionnaire was finalized by the QDG I and approved by the CB in October 2003 • The following four modules were added and also approved by the CB: Nationality and Ethnicity; Previous Partners; Intentions of Breaking Up; Housing • The questionnaire has been translated into Bulgarian, French, German, Russian. • A questionnaire manual has been just completed by the QDG I but has not been translated yet. • The idea to prepare a justification document was replaced by a proposal to write and publish a technical journal article.
Instruments: GGS questionnaire for wave II • QDG I led by Andres Vikat is about to complete the work on the wave I questionnaire and manual. • In the meantime, QDG II has been set up and is led by Zsolt Speder. • QDG II will develop the questionnaire for wave II, which will inter alia focus on complete work and education histories. • Wave III questionnaire will build on the questionnaires for the first two waves. • The first meeting of QDG II was held in Budapest earlier this month.
Instruments: Sample design guidelines • Sarah Franklin gave a presentation at Prague on methodological issues related to the designing of a longitudinal survey and made suggestions on sampling and sample maintenance for GGS. • Statistics Canada staff, led by Sange de Silva, and PAU staff met in Ottawa in June 2003 to discuss work on the guidelines, which were subsequently drafted by Michelle Simard. • The draft was presented to the CB for comments at Berlin and Paris CB meetings. • Further work was carried out before this meeting and the guidelines are among the documents of the meeting.
Instruments: Contextual Database • Gerda Neyer spoke at Prague on behalf of the Contextual Database Working Group (CDWG), informing the meeting of its approach and activities. • The coordinatorship of the CDWG passed from Patrick Festy to Martin Spielauer in July 2003. • Spielauer transferred to Max Planck Institute in October 2003 and has been working most of the time on a document concerning the overview and conceptual framework for the Database. • The membership of the Group did not change; the Group did not meet under Spielauer yet. • Spielauer’s document is available.
Instruments: Report on use of administrative records in GGS • Statistics Norway agreed to lead Administrative Records Group (ARG) and Helge Brunborg became its coordinator. • The decision to form ARG was made at Prague in order to develop proposals for the use of administrative records data in conjunction with smaller scale GGS surveys. • PAU approached National Statistical Offices (NSOs) of the Nordic and some other countries requesting their participation in the ARG. • Brunborg convened a meeting of the Group in Oslo in October 2003 with NSO-designated statisticians and initiated work aimed at identifying data in national administrative records that can possibly be used instead of being collected through GGS. • The results of the work of the ARG so far are presented in Brunborg’s report.
Instruments: Minimum programme of research • The Analysis Group (AG), coordinated by Jenny Gierveld, was formed at Prague and informally met at that time. • Upon Gierveld’s request to all the members, some sent to her written contributions on research topics of their choice. • These were of limited use because they had been written without a consensus on how to approach the topics. • Gierveld reiterated the request to the members in February 2004 without success. • She undertook work on a particular research topic and submitted a report on analysis options to CB in March 2004. • Independent of the work of the AG, Alphonse L. MacDonald proposed to draft suggestions to make the first-wave national reports more policy relevant.
Countries: Who participated in all IWG meetings, including Spetses
Countries: Some thoughts • The total numbers of countries present at Budapest, Prague, Spetses: 25, 29, 26, respectively. • The decline from 29 (Prague) to 26 (Spetses) does not appear to reflect a declining interest – colleagues from Hungary, Spain and UK had no choice but to be absent. Plus one more faraway country will join but is not counted in the Spetses total. • The absence of Croatia, Finland and Slovakia is worrisome, as in all the three cases the reason appears to the lack of financial and/or human resources. • Needless to say, several other countries face the same situation, however, efforts are there under way to remove the constraints.
Countries: Australia joins Peter McDonald (Australia) wrote on 6 May 2004: “Apologies as I shall be unable to attend this [Spetses] meeting. However, Australia’s participation from 2005 is still very much on the cards. The Australian GGP would be run as an add-on to the existing government national longitudinal panel survey, HILDA (Household, Income and Labour Dynamics Australia). HILDA already collects about 60-70 per cent of the questions in the GGP questionnaire. There will be a design difference in that HILDA interviews all adults in a household, therefore couple data would be available for Australia. Funding is unlikely to be a problem.”
Fundraising: Now a top priority • Now that the GGS instruments are completed and ready for use, the fundraising appears to be a top priority • This is particularly true for: • GGS fieldwork and other in-country activities • Technical assistance to countries • Training of various types (sampling and sample maintenance, in-country use of GGS data for analyses for different audiences, work on contextual data) • PAU coordination, including promotion of country compliance with participation criteria (to be discussed later.)
Fundraising: For fieldwork • Several countries have secured/are securing funds for the fieldwork, some with outside (Max Planck Institute’s) assistance. These are: • Austria (???) • Bulgaria (MPI) • Germany • France • Japan • Russia (MPI) • These countries along Hungary (wave 2) went/will to go into the field this year.
Fundraising: For fieldwork (cont.) • We will hear about fundraising efforts in other countries later in the meeting. At this point I wish to inform you about PAU’s efforts to help a few countries. • Discussions are under way with the EFTA (Switzerland and Norway) statisticians about securing funds that would permit the launching of a first phase of GGP implementation in: • Croatia • Serbia and Montenegro • The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia • This phase would include the GGS questionnaire translation and a pilot survey.
Fundraising: For fieldwork (cont.) • According to Aura Alexandrescu (Romania) the country created a GGP National Committee. The UNFPA Romania Office greatly helped. • This appears to suggest that UNFPA will be involved in co-financing the GGP in Romania. • If this were indeed the case, then other countries eligible for UNFPA assistance should take note. • In principle, on request from their Governments, these countries should be able to secure UNFPA assistance for GGP participation.
Fundraising: For PAU coordination • The PAU is pursuing a three-pronged approach to fundraising in support of its GGP coordination activities • Requests for financial assistance to selected governments of the UNECE member states. • Starting of a dialogue with the UNFPA on continued funding in spite of the early indications that the Fund ceased supporting the PAU. • A plan to explore with one of the US National Institutes of Health as to whether the Institute may be interested in supporting the PAU coordinationship.
Fundraising: For PAU – requests to UNECE governments • The UNECE Executive Secretary (ES) wrote/is writing to Foreign Ministers and other Ministers of the following countries requesting financial assistance for the PAU, especially GGP: • Austria (100,000 euros annually) • France (to early to expect a response) • Germany (letters to two Ministers awaiting the ES signature) • Italy (to early to expect a response) • Netherlands (no response yet) • Norway (no response yet) • Spain (to early to write due to recent change of government) • Switzerland (no formal response yet; informal answer is no, as a consequence of the new bilateral Swiss-EU agreements) • The ES will consider writing to the governments of other countries.
Fundraising: For PAU – request to UNFPA • PAU is seeking to arrange end-June top-level talks between UNECE and UNFPA on possible continued UNFPA support. • The UNECE proposals to UNFPA will probably include suggestion that the funding be provided in support of GGS data collection and analyses focusing on contraceptive use, secondary sterility and treatment, incomes and poverty, material deprivation and behaviour of below-25 year olds. • The UNECE’s position will be that UNFPA needs UNECE and vice versa and that the partnership between the two organisations will endure only if UNFPA’s support continues.
Fundraising: For PAU – request to a US NIH • Over the years, the US National Institute on Ageing (NIA) has been supporting the PAU’s work on microdata census samples and population ageing. • PAU will seek to organise an end-June top-level meeting between UNECE and the NIH institute in question. • The meeting would explore the type of long-term financial assistance similar to that the PAU has been receiving from NIA. • THE STRATEGY OF THE PAU, WITH STRONG ES SUPPORT IS TO DIVERSIFY THE SOURCES OF ITS FUNDING.
Fundraising: For training and technical assistance • The PAU will be interested to start without delay discussions about fundraising for training and technical assistance with selected countries represented here and some members of the GGP Consortium. • Repeated questions to countries have not yielded many concrete answers to the questions on technical assistance and training needed. • The discussions on training within CB have not yet addressed in-county training needs related to steps that will lead to GGS and contextual data. • We seem to at an early stage of our thinking on training, technical assistance and fundraising for these.
PAU changes: Departure of staff • Within the next year or so all the professional PAU staff will leave. The chronology is as follows: • Enrico Bisogno, supported from the regular budget, moves to the UNECE Statistics Division: 1 June 2004. • Miroslav Macura, supported from the regular budget, retires: 1 October – 31 December 2004 (at the latest). • Alphonse L. MacDonald, supported from extra-budgetary funds, ends his tenure as PAU senior project staff: 30 June 2005 (at the latest). • Regular-budget positions (now occupied by Macura and Bisogno) will remain at the PAU and will be available for internal/external recruitment. • Subject to availability of funds, a replacement for MacDonald will be sought.
PAU changes: Recruiting a new crew • The position occupied by Macura is expected to be widely advertised next week and filled by a best candidate, internal or external, within 4-6 months. • The idea is to have a new PAU chief on board within this time frame, then fully brief him/her by the current chief and avoid as much disruption of transition as possible. • Position occupied by Bisogno will be temporarily filled since mid-June and than advertised and filled on a more permanent basis by a candidate who will come through the UN National Competitive Exam channel. • A replacement for MacDonald will be someone with his mix of qualities and skills and his level of staff seniority.
PAU changes: Objectives • To ensure that a new PAU is: • Roughly of the same size as the present one. • Capable of promoting and coordinating regional research programme, including GGP. • Able to deliver on what the CB has entrusted the PAU as the GGP coordinator. • Able to continue to promote intergovernmental and expert dialogues on population issues and policies.
