Fieldwork cost analysis across countries in the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE)

Costs for large scientific face-to-face surveys have risen a lot in recent years. Together with current political trends of re-nationalization, an increasing ignorance of scientific evidence and significant cuts in research budgets, this poses great challenges to the funding and operation of surveys ensuring scientific excellence by providing high-quality data as basis for evidence-based policy-making. The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) is a multidisciplinary and cross-national face-to-face panel study exploring the process of population ageing that is strongly affected by this situation. One of SHARE’s key features is its ex-ante harmonization across countries, which allows comparing the effects of different health and welfare systems on individuals and families. This cross-national harmonization also includes a harmonized and centrally coordinated procurement and tendering process, giving us the possibility to compare countries regarding their survey costs. Based on a common model contract including a standardized price sheet, we are in the unique situation to have detailed data on different aspects of fieldwork costs for more than 20 countries in SHARE Wave 8. Because these countries differ a lot regarding their socio-economic background, we adjust costs for the SHARE study in the participating countries by applying purchasing power parities that are widely used in the economic literature. This adjustment allows meaningful comparisons between countries with different price levels that previously were not possible and gives valuable insights into an area where information – especially in a comparative perspective – is scarce.