FReDA offers current data and a large sample

Leonie Kleinschrot is a doctoral student in sociology at the German Youth Institute (DJI) in Munich and a visiting researcher at the BiB. She works on gender ideologies and gender inequality in the private sphere. At the FReDA user conference, she presented initial findings from her analyses in the lecture "Declined traditionalism or widespread diversification? Gender ideologies in contemporary East and West Germany".

We spoke with Leonie Kleinschrot about her experiences as a user of the dataset.

Question: What did you research with the FReDA data?

Leonie Kleinschrot: I use the FReDA data to get a picture of the attitudes towards gender roles currently found in Germany. I work out different multidimensional patterns of attitudes and compare whether men and women and people living in East or West Germany differ in them. Previous studies using the same methodological approach are based on data for Germany that is at least ten years old.

Why did you use the FReDA data set for your study? Why was FReDA the appropriate sample for your research question? What distinguishes the data set in your eyes?

FReDA is very well suited for this research question because it collected eight attitudinal items on gender roles, and it did so very recently in 2021 with a representative sample. The items also address different areas of life in which gender roles play a role. In addition, the FReDA sample is large enough to allow a comparison between people in East and West Germany.

Is the data set well prepared? Was it easy to do research with the data?

The data are very well prepared, many important variables and weights have already been created and made available. Researchers who have previously worked with pairfam or the GGS will quickly recognise the relevant variables.

Is it difficult to access the data set at all?

As usual, you can find the data intuitively via the GESIS homepage and it is also made available very quickly after the request.

How did you find the documents accompanying the surveys?

The various accompanying documents are very comprehensive and correspondingly helpful, especially since all documents are available in English and German.

What is your conclusion? Will you continue to work with FReDA data in your future research projects?

I am looking forward to the following waves of FReDA, as they will also allow longitudinal observations. For the topic of gender ideologies, the international comparisons will be particularly exciting, which will be possible due to the connection of FReDA to the GGP.