A new data infrastructure for family research and demographic analysis: the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA)

• Published in: European sociological review 2024-04
• Main Authors: Hank, Karsten, Gummer, Tobias, Bujard, Martin, Neyer, Franz J, Pollak, Reinhard, Spieß, C Katharina, Wolf, Christof, Christmann, Pablo, Kunz, Tanja, Lück, Detlev, Naderi, Robert, Nutz, Theresa, Schmid, Lisa, Thönnissen, Carolin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0266-7215; 1468-2672
• DOI: 10.1093/esr/jcae019

This data brief introduces the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA; https://www.freda-panel.de/), a longitudinal, multi-actor database for family research. Major substantive fields addressed in the questionnaire include fertility-related attitudes and behaviours, reproductive health, work-family conflict, couples’ division of labour, gender roles, intimate relationships, separation and divorce, parenting and intergenerational relations, and well-being. FReDA is based on two initially independent samples: the newly drawn FReDA-GGS sample (n_recruitment = 37,777 respondents, aged 18–49 years), constituting the German contribution to the Generations and Gender Surveys (GGS-II), and the FReDA-pairfam sample (n = 6,216 respondents who originally participated in the German Family Panel [pairfam]). Both samples are fully integrated, using one survey instrument consisting of the harmonized GGS-II and pairfam questionnaires. Mainly web-based interviews, complemented by paper-based interviews, are conducted biannually, with one wave being split across two subwaves. We provide a short description of FReDA’s forerunners—the GGS and pairfam—and give an overview of FReDA’s design and content, its baseline wave (collected in 2021) and data releases, as well as a brief outlook on FReDA’s road ahead.