Regional Data
Use of Regional and Georeferenced Data
The Research Data Center (FDZ) of the FGZ-RISC offers the opportunity of using georeferenced portions of its data. Respondent-specific contextual information—such as municipality size class, postal code, municipality codes, or microm data—can be linked to the survey data.
Subject to strict data protection regulations, it is possible to use the respondents' exact place of residence to combine external contextual data with the FGZ data. In this way, virtually any regional contextual data can be combined with the survey data and used for analysis.
Our data protection concept for the use of regional data is strongly based on the concept of the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
Types of Georeferencing
The variables "federal state" and "East-West" are already included in the German Social Cohesion Panel dataset. Additional data protection regulations apply to the use of other regional data.
We generally distinguish four categories of georeferencing:
- Non-restrictive
- Less restrictive regional indicators
- Restrictive regional indicators
- Essentially anonymized address data of the surveyed households
Regional indicators (non-restrictive)
Non-restrictive regional indicators are provided with the Scientific Use Files of the RDC-RISC.
Requirements:
- Submission of a data transfer agreement and a data protection declaration
Available variables: Federal state, East/West Germany
Regional indicators (less restrictive)
Less restrictive regional indicators can be used directly at your own institution.
Requirements:
- Registration as an SCP user
- Submission of a data protection concept that ensures the secure handling of the data. The data protection concept must include information about the persons who will work with the data (access control), describe the procedures for regularly changing passwords (admittance control), and specify the location and type of computer on which the data will be stored (entry control). Furthermore, measures must be described to ensure that the data cannot be used on other computers – for example, on private or home PCs (admittance control).
Available variables: Federal state/NUTS1, spatial planning regions (since 1996), municipality size class
Regional indicators (restrictive)
Restrictive regional indicators may only be used at the RDC safe room at SOCIUM in Bremen.
Requirements:
- Registration as an SCP user
- Submission of a research project outline
- Signing of a data privacy statement for the use of the safe room
(List of available variables will follow)
Geocoordinates of the surveyed households
Under specially protected conditions, effectively anonymized address data of the surveyed households may be used to create contextual references.
Use is exclusively at the RDC safe room at SOCIUM, University of Bremen. A special data protection concept is applied to ensure that address data and survey data are never stored in the same dataset at any time.
Requirements:
- Registration as an SCP user
- Submission of the research project outline
- Signing of the data protection declaration for the use of the safe room
Available data: Effectively anonymized address data of the surveyed households
Available georeferenced datasets
Georeferenced data are currently available for the following datasets:
- German Social Cohesion Panel: Wave 1, Wave 2
For these waves, the RDC provides Microm and infas360 contextual data. This data can only be linked and analyzed with the survey data of the German Social Cohesion Panel at the safe room.
Contact
For questions regarding the use of georeferenced data, please contact: