The Living in Ireland Survey formed the Irish component of the European Community Household Panel (ECHP): an EU-wide project, co-ordinated by Eurostat, to conduct harmonised longitudinal surveys dealing the social situation, financial circumstances and living standards of European individuals and households. The fact that the same set of households were interviewed each year meant that it was possible to study changes in the characteristics and circumstances of particular households or individuals over time. Living in Ireland provides harmonised cross-sectional surveys for each year in which the survey is conducted, as well as longitudinal data, which permits dynamic analysis of changes over time. The first wave of the ECHP was conducted in 1994, and the same individuals and households were followed each year. The survey ran for eight waves, until 2001. EU-SILC (Survey of Income and Living Conditions) commenced in 2003, and is the successor survey to the Living In Ireland dataset. Survey Structure The Living in Ireland Survey involves a household questionnaire which is completed by the ‘reference person’ or person responsible for the accommodation, and an individual questionnaire which is completed by each adult (age 16 or over) in the household. The individual questionnaires in 1994 were administered to each member born in 1977 or earlier. This ‘cut-off’ year was updated in each wave of the survey, so that it by 2001 all household members born in 1984 or earlier were eligible for individual interview.

Probability: Stratified. The sample was selected using the ESRI’s RANSAM system, which was developed at the institute and has been successfully used for selecting random samples from the electoral register for over two decades. The sampling strategy allows one to pre-stratify the sampling frame according to a number of socio-demographic criteria. In selecting the sample for the Living in Ireland Survey the following strata were used: Province: Four categories, Dublin; rest of Leinster; Munster; Ulster/Connaght. Urban/Rural: Two categories: DEDs with more than 50 per cent of their population in towns with a population of 1,500 or more, versus the rest; Unemployment: Two categories: DEDs with an unemployment rate of 16 per cent or more versus the rest. The target sample selected using the ESRI’s RANSAM procedure was a sample of persons, not of households. Since the probability of selection is greater for households with a larger number of registered voters, this means that the resulting sample will tend to over-represent larger households. This was taken into account in reweighting the sample for analysis.

Face-to-face interview