Welcome to the website of the "German General Social Survey" (ALLBUS)

What makes the ALLBUS unique?
The ALLBUS provides a methodologically sophisticated, rich database that reflects the attitudes and behavior of the German population on the most important social science topics - both as a snapshot of the cross-sections and over long periods of time through the regular repetition of key topics.

With a duration of more than 40 years, a thematically wide-ranging program of questions and a methodologically sophisticated implementation, the ALLBUS represents a unique treasure trove of data for cross-sectional and time series analyses as well as for survey methodological analyses.

Who are the ALLBUS data suitable for?
The ALLBUS data is suitable for numerous analytical purposes in research and teaching:

The individual cross-sectional data sets, each of which has its own content focus, are used to examine the attitudes and behaviors of the German population.

The replication of question complexes from the ALLBUS and other studies enables the analysis of development processes and social change. For the analysis of trends, a cumulative data set is available that contains all characteristics that were surveyed at least twice in the ALLBUS.

Methodological questions can be examined partly with the ALLBUS surveys themselves (e.g. tests for sequence effects or effects of different question formulations through the use of split versions), partly on the basis of accompanying methodological studies for which separate data sets are available in the GESIS data archive (e.g. on interviewer effects, on test-retest reliability, on non-response problems).

Temporal and geographical scope
Since 1980, the German population (from 1991 including people without German citizenship) has been surveyed every two years. The ALLBUS program includes surveys from 22 different points in time with questions on 15 different topics.