Periodic Reporting for period 4 - SHARE-COHESION (Cohesion in further developing and innovating SHARE across all 28 member countries)
Reporting period: 2024-04-01 to 2024-09-30
The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), is a research infrastructure for studying the effects of health, social, economic and environmental policies over the life-course. The key value of SHARE lies in its strict cross-national comparability which permits unbiased cross-national comparisons of living conditions of the European population aged 50 and over in all EU countries, Switzerland and Israel. The main objective of SHARE is to provide excellent data for researchers worldwide through a combination of (a) European coverage, (b) transdisciplinarity and (c) population-representative panel design with strict cross-national comparability through ex-ante harmonisation.
The Achilles heel of SHARE, very much like the European Union itself, lies in the centrifugal forces of the member states with their different policies, priorities and abilities to pay. These centrifugal forces have increased with the number of countries and endanger the cohesion of SHARE as a pan-European infrastructure, especially our ability to harmonise the scientific content and the survey methods across SHARE’s member countries. SHARE’s strategy to counter these centrifugal forces has been, from its very beginning, to establish a strong central coordination, which is financially independent.
The overarching aim of this project is therefore to strengthen the centralised approach of SHARE in order to combine scientific excellence with cohesion across all 28 SHARE member countries. To reach this aim, several objectives are set in SHARE Waves 8, 9, and 10:
• Supporting the supranational innovation and development tasks to be executed by the Area Coordinators (scientific content)
• Supporting the survey designers (fieldwork methods and electronic tools)
• Funding training as it is instrumental for internal cohesion, especially in the scientifically less developed Member States and their participating SMEs
• Due to COVID-19, adaptation and revision of scientific content, electronic tools, interview mode, and training procedures, plus implementation of the first SHARE Corona Survey including data release
The Achilles heel of SHARE, very much like the European Union itself, lies in the centrifugal forces of the member states with their different policies, priorities and abilities to pay. These centrifugal forces have increased with the number of countries and endanger the cohesion of SHARE as a pan-European infrastructure, especially our ability to harmonise the scientific content and the survey methods across SHARE’s member countries. SHARE’s strategy to counter these centrifugal forces has been, from its very beginning, to establish a strong central coordination, which is financially independent.
The overarching aim of this project is therefore to strengthen the centralised approach of SHARE in order to combine scientific excellence with cohesion across all 28 SHARE member countries. To reach this aim, several objectives are set in SHARE Waves 8, 9, and 10:
• Supporting the supranational innovation and development tasks to be executed by the Area Coordinators (scientific content)
• Supporting the survey designers (fieldwork methods and electronic tools)
• Funding training as it is instrumental for internal cohesion, especially in the scientifically less developed Member States and their participating SMEs
• Due to COVID-19, adaptation and revision of scientific content, electronic tools, interview mode, and training procedures, plus implementation of the first SHARE Corona Survey including data release
The third reporting period started after the end of the fieldwork of the main data collection of Wave 9. It covers the data release of Wave 9 and the preparation of SHARE Wave 10, including two test runs. The fourth and last reporting period covers the remaining six months of the project. While the data release of Wave 9 had just been finished, the preparation of SHARE Wave 10 has lasted until the project end in September 2024. The activities of RP3 and RP4 include:
o The continuation and finalization of management and coordination of the project (WP1) at SHARE-ERIC and the SHARE Berlin Institute.
o Questionnaire-related changes and innovations (WPs 2-6)
WP2: Preparation of SHARE W10 and further checks to be ready for the main data collection of W10 beginning in autumn 2024. Involvement in the biomarker studies on ApoE4 binding in dried blood spots collected among SHARE respondents.
WP3: Work on comparing healthcare use for several types of care in regular W8 with their post-pandemic counterparts in regular W9. Preparation of a specific drop-off questionnaire in France in W10 with focus on social preferences with regard to health and long-term care.
WP4: The release of W9 made more data available on social networks, which now include another easy-to-use comprehensive index of social integration for Waves 6, 8 and 9. Improvement of links in the social networks and children modules and review of respondents’ relations.
WP5: Completion of the codification of occupations from the retrospective working careers of respondents in the W3 and refinement of the Job Episodes Panel. Testing and implementing new IT questions and introduction of questions on flexible working arrangements for W10.
WP6: Upgrade of the household income and assets modules and development of financial distress indicator and add-on modules to investigate new subjects. Imputation of missing data and generating sample weights.
Overall, the major work in RP4 focused on further processing of the Release 9.0.0 data covering Waves 1 to 9 and further data refinements, improved links in SN and CH modules, review of respondents’ relations and interviewer remarks, enhanced data documentation.Input received from all substantive Work Packages (WPs 2 to 6).
o Content coordination (WP7): Qualitative pretest interviews of new IT module; setting up platform for translation procedures for W10; coordination of translation procedures and national versions; training country team operators and the Survey Agency trainers to perform quality checks during trainings.
o Sustainability, cohesion, harmonisation (WP8): Updating SHARE statutes with a view to extending the SHARE-ERIC after 2024; establishing SHARE as a player in the intersection of bio-medical and socio-economic research; new payment scheme for ERIC membership in 2025; creation of a node of several RIs with a core consisting of the European Social Survey (ESS) and SHARE, plus satellites EVS, GGP and GUIDE to receive stable funding; intensification of the global cooperation with other ageing surveys, including new initiatives such as HAALSA in South Africa and AL SEHA in Egypt.
o Survey methodological changes and innovations (WP9): Finalising contract for main data collection of W10; further preparation of multi-mode future of SHARE (SHARE 2.0); preparation of experimental study: Self-Completion Questionnaire; overview of representativeness of nursing home respondents; set of random and targeted back-checks to detect suspicious interviews.
o Software improvements (WP10): Updated CaseCTRL and SampleCTRL software allowing for mixed and multi-mode strategies; setting up cloud service infrastructure to host the SampleCTRL; final instrument preparations for W10; update of the Data&Documentation Tool.
o Dissemination and communication (WP11): Update of website; organisation of around 50 events and user workshops; start of SHARE International Seminar Series (SISS); Annual Activity Report 2023/24; maintenance of social media accounts.
o The continuation and finalization of management and coordination of the project (WP1) at SHARE-ERIC and the SHARE Berlin Institute.
o Questionnaire-related changes and innovations (WPs 2-6)
WP2: Preparation of SHARE W10 and further checks to be ready for the main data collection of W10 beginning in autumn 2024. Involvement in the biomarker studies on ApoE4 binding in dried blood spots collected among SHARE respondents.
WP3: Work on comparing healthcare use for several types of care in regular W8 with their post-pandemic counterparts in regular W9. Preparation of a specific drop-off questionnaire in France in W10 with focus on social preferences with regard to health and long-term care.
WP4: The release of W9 made more data available on social networks, which now include another easy-to-use comprehensive index of social integration for Waves 6, 8 and 9. Improvement of links in the social networks and children modules and review of respondents’ relations.
WP5: Completion of the codification of occupations from the retrospective working careers of respondents in the W3 and refinement of the Job Episodes Panel. Testing and implementing new IT questions and introduction of questions on flexible working arrangements for W10.
WP6: Upgrade of the household income and assets modules and development of financial distress indicator and add-on modules to investigate new subjects. Imputation of missing data and generating sample weights.
Overall, the major work in RP4 focused on further processing of the Release 9.0.0 data covering Waves 1 to 9 and further data refinements, improved links in SN and CH modules, review of respondents’ relations and interviewer remarks, enhanced data documentation.Input received from all substantive Work Packages (WPs 2 to 6).
o Content coordination (WP7): Qualitative pretest interviews of new IT module; setting up platform for translation procedures for W10; coordination of translation procedures and national versions; training country team operators and the Survey Agency trainers to perform quality checks during trainings.
o Sustainability, cohesion, harmonisation (WP8): Updating SHARE statutes with a view to extending the SHARE-ERIC after 2024; establishing SHARE as a player in the intersection of bio-medical and socio-economic research; new payment scheme for ERIC membership in 2025; creation of a node of several RIs with a core consisting of the European Social Survey (ESS) and SHARE, plus satellites EVS, GGP and GUIDE to receive stable funding; intensification of the global cooperation with other ageing surveys, including new initiatives such as HAALSA in South Africa and AL SEHA in Egypt.
o Survey methodological changes and innovations (WP9): Finalising contract for main data collection of W10; further preparation of multi-mode future of SHARE (SHARE 2.0); preparation of experimental study: Self-Completion Questionnaire; overview of representativeness of nursing home respondents; set of random and targeted back-checks to detect suspicious interviews.
o Software improvements (WP10): Updated CaseCTRL and SampleCTRL software allowing for mixed and multi-mode strategies; setting up cloud service infrastructure to host the SampleCTRL; final instrument preparations for W10; update of the Data&Documentation Tool.
o Dissemination and communication (WP11): Update of website; organisation of around 50 events and user workshops; start of SHARE International Seminar Series (SISS); Annual Activity Report 2023/24; maintenance of social media accounts.
The SHARE-COHESION project is an important element of the overall SHARE project. Its main impact is the impact of SHARE itself, which provides an infrastructure of data permitting researchers to help matching the challenges of population ageing, both in terms of empirical research and evidence-based policy decisions. By the end of March 2023, the number of users had surpassed 19,000 scientists worldwide. SHARE has been used widely by the EU Commission and Member States’ governments in designing and evaluating health care, long-term care, pension and labour market policies.
Since SHARE Wave 7, full coverage of all Continental EU Member States has been attained. The current challenge is to maintain this EU coverage in spite of the current political trends of re-nationalization and disregard for scientific evidence. The main sustainability challenge for SHARE is to align SHARE’s five operational pillars (i.e. (1) national survey, (2) routine tasks, (3) international coordination, (4) innovation and development of content and methods, (5) harmonisation with other surveys) with the available funding sources. A particular challenge is to find a manageable balance between centralised and decentralised funding.
Since SHARE Wave 7, full coverage of all Continental EU Member States has been attained. The current challenge is to maintain this EU coverage in spite of the current political trends of re-nationalization and disregard for scientific evidence. The main sustainability challenge for SHARE is to align SHARE’s five operational pillars (i.e. (1) national survey, (2) routine tasks, (3) international coordination, (4) innovation and development of content and methods, (5) harmonisation with other surveys) with the available funding sources. A particular challenge is to find a manageable balance between centralised and decentralised funding.