The German Survey on Volunteering - Der Deutsche Freiwilligensurvey: User manual for SUF FWS 2014, Version 1.3

Abstract

The German Survey on Volunteering (Deutscher Freiwilligensurvey, FWS) is a representative survey on volunteering in Germany, focused on persons aged 14 and above, funded by the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (German: Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, BMFSFJ). The Survey on Volunteering is the largest study on volunteering and holding honorary office in Germany. It offers a central basis upon which to provide social reporting on volunteering. Extent and context of volunteering, donations, the willingness to volunteer and their motives have been surveyed in telephone interviews. Data can be differentiated by social and regional characteristics. Data of the Survey on Volunteering (FWS) have been surveyed every five years since 1999. The fourth wave took place in 2014. For every wave a separate random sample was drawn, therefore the data is cross-sectional. Until 2009, the survey was managed and conducted by TNS Infratest Sozialforschung (1999 Infratest Burke). Since December 2011 it has been scientifically managed and supervised by the German Centre of Gerontology (DZA). The inter-views of the fourth wave were conducted by infas - Institute for Applied Social Sciences in 2014. Data sets of all waves have been edited by the DZA as Scientific Use Files and are available at the Research Data Centre of the DZA (Forschungsdatenzentrum - FDZ-DZA). This user manual intends to facilitate working with the SUF German Survey on Volunteering 2014 and could be useful to consult for all issues of data management. For usage of the first three waves we recommend the user manual 2009-2004-1999 (Hameister et al. 2017).