Title: General social survey, cycle 11 - social and community support, 1996.

Series title: General social surveys

Principal investigator(s): Statistics Canada. General Social Surveys

Producer: Ottawa, Ont.: Statistics Canada. General Social Surveys

Date of creation:

Funding agency: Health Canada

Collector:

Distributor: Ottawa, Ont.: Statistics Canada. Data Liberation Initiative

Date of distribution: 1998-04-09

Access conditions/restrictions: University of Toronto faculty, students and staff, for academic research and teaching purposes only. See DLI licence.

Summary: The two primary objectives of the GSS are: to gather data on social trends in order to monitor temporal changes in the living conditions and well-being of Canadians; and to provide immediate information on specific social policy issues of current or emerging interest. The GSS is a continuing programme with a single survey cycle every second year. To meet the stated objectives, the data collected by the GSS are made up of three components: Classification, Core and Focus.

Classification content consists of variables which provide the means of delineating population groups and for use in the analysis of Core and Focus data. Examples of classification variables are age, sex, marital status, language, place of birth, and income.

Core content is designed to obtain information which monitors social trends or measures changes in society related to living conditions or well-being. Cycle 11 marks the first GSS with social support as the core content. Health, the core subject matter in Cycles 1 and 6 was due for repetition in Cycle 11. Social support replaced it, however, as the introduction of the National Population Health Survey in 1994 eliminated the need to collect health data. Social support is not a new topic for the GSS as it received coverage in the first (core=health) and fifth (core=family) cycles.

Focus content is aimed at the second survey objective of GSS. This component obtains information on specific policy issues which are of particular interest to certain federal departments or other user groups. In general, focus content is not expected to be repeated on a periodic basis. The focus content of Cycle 11 collected information on tobacco use and was sponsored by Health Canada.

The objectives and scope of Cycle 11 were: to determine the nature of the help received and provided; to understand the dynamic between an individual's social network and help received and provided; and to identify unmet needs and the reasons for the needs. The 1996 GSS focused on help given or received during temporary difficult times or out of necessity due to long-term health or physical limitations in daily activities either inside or outside the household.

Major variable categories include: help received by respondent , help given by respondent , unmet needs-help received by respondent , help given by respondent - impact , family and closest friend contact , paid and unpaid work , health indicators , life events , general health and satisfaction , characteristics of respondent and spouse , Income , demographic data on roster members , help received by respondent day to day , help given by respondent day to day

Keywords: care and social support , health and disability among seniors , housing and living arrangements , seniors , work and retirement

Geographic coverage: Canada, provinces

Time period:

Periodicity:

Date(s) of collection: 1996-02 to 1996-12

Universe: The target population for the GSS was all persons 15 years of age and over residing in Canada, excluding: (1) Residents of the Yukon and Northwest Territories; (2) Full-time residents of institutions.

Data type: public use microdata file

Sample: Stratified RDD sample. Most of the sample was selected using the Elimination of Non-Working Banks technique of Random Digit Dialling (RDD).

First, an additional sample was added of approximately 1,250 seniors aged 65 and over (sponsored by the Senior’s Directorate of Health Canada) and 700 seniors over-sampled from the province of Quebec (sponsored by the Quebec Bureau of Statistics). These supplemental interviews were drawn from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) rotate-outs1. Second, approximately 25% of the regular sample was also drawn from the LFS rotate-outs and was restricted to seniors aged 65 and over, thereby obtaining more reliable estimates from this group.

Unit of observation: Unit of observation is the respondent. Additional records for roster members (persons giving help to or receiving help from the respondent) may occur. Therefore number of respondents (n=) and number of records (pr=) are different. Use FLAG_1ST variable to filter for the first record per respondent, then WGHT_FNL to weight to population size.

Mode of data collection: computer-assisted telephone interview

Citation: Statistics Canada. General social survey cycle 11 : social and community support, 1996 [computer file]. Ottawa, Ont.: Statistics Canada [producer]; Statistics Canada. Data Liberation Initiative [distributor], 1998-04-09

Extent of file: 1 data file (12,756 logical records; 27,567 physical records) & accompanying documentation

Notes:

• The unit of observation is respondent. Additional records for roster members (persons giving help to or receiving help from the respondent) may occur. Therefore number of respondents (n=) and number of records (pr=) are different. Use FLAG_1ST variable to filter for the first record per respondent, then WGHT_FNL to weight to population size.
• Normally, the GSS microdata file is structured in such a way that there is one record per respondent and this record includes variables that represent characteristics of the respondent and the household. For Cycle 11, however, this is not the most efficient file structure because the amount of data collected for a respondent depends on the number of roster members (i.e., people the respondent has given help to and/or received help from).

  To optimize analysis options for users it was decided to allow the possibility of multiple records per respondent. The number of basic records per respondent is determined by the number of roster members a respondent reported. A roster member is one who provides help to the respondent or receives help from the respondent. Each basic record contains personal level information (screening sections, sections C, F, G, H, I, J), and space for one roster member (sections A-Demographic Information on Non-Household Roster Members, B- Help Received by Respondent, and E- Help Given by Respondent). Typically, only section B or E will be completed unless there were exchanges of help in both directions, for example, exchanges of emotional support.

  To optimize analysis options for users it was decided to allow the possibility of multiple records per respondent. The number of basic records per respondent is determined by the number of roster members a respondent reported. A roster member is one who provides help to the respondent or receives help from the respondent. Each basic record contains personal level information (screening sections, sections C, F, G, H, I, J), and space for one roster member (sections A-Demographic Information on Non-Household Roster Members, B- Help Received by Respondent, and E- Help Given by Respondent). Typically, only section B or E will be completed unless there were exchanges of help in both directions, for example, exchanges of emotional support.

  Because of this file structure, certain variables or flags must be selected to ensure the population of interest has been chosen for analysis. “Select” will be used throughout the documentation to indicate this computer operation which creates a sub-file containing only those records that match on the SELECT criteria. For example, to create a working file of all respondents, SELECT all records with FLAG_1ST=1.

  Some of the most commonly used flags found on the file, when to use them, and how to use them are described in the following sections of the User guide. In order to understand Section 9.1 and 9.2, one should be familiar with the definitions in Section 3.