Turning the challenges of population ageing into chances for the European citizens is a top priority for Europe. The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) helps to understand individual and societal ageing. It is an infrastructure that collects micro data on health, socio-economic status and social and family networks of more than 40,000 individuals aged 50 or over. The third wave of data collection in 2008/2009 (SHARELIFE) focuses on the life histories of the participants and allows to assess the full effect of welfare state interventions through the linkage of individual micro data over the respondents’ entire life with institutional macro data on the welfare state. Two 'new' EU member states – the Czech Republic and Poland – joined SHARE in 2006. Currently (May 2011), the fourth wave is underway in 18 countries, with Estonia, Hungary, Portugal and Slovenia as new additions. The current wave brought new cutting-edge innovations to SHARE. An extended module on social networks was added to the instrument, allowing a detailed assessment of respondents’ social embeddings and satisfaction with social connections. With this new module, it will be able to explore critically under-researched aspects of older people’s life, e.g. relationships between retirement and social connectedness. Further, in the German subsample, experiments are being conducted regarding interviewer training and respondent incentives, as well as the highly innovative collection of dried blood spots that will enable researchers to examine a whole new dimension of relationships between objective biomarkers and socio-economic characteristics. Finally, a subsample of respondents is asked about their willingness to have their DRV retirement records merged to their SHARE data.
This presentation will focus on availability and measurement of variables relevant for labor market research. SHARE contains various modules with extensive information on employment, pensions, income, and assets and housing, enabling researchers to explore a plethora of policy-relevant research questions.
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