Employment Surveys 1979 - 2006
The BIBB/IAB and BIBB/BAuA surveys are representative labour force cross-sections on qualification and working conditions in Germany each covering between 20,000 - 35,000 individuals. Major concerns of these surveys are to measure qualifications, career history, and detailed job characteristics in the German labour force.
To date, the Federal Institute for Vocational Training and Training (BIBB) has surveyed six cross-sections. In 1979, 1985/86, and 1991/1992 data were surveyed in cooperation with the Institute of Employment Research (IAB) of the German Federal Labour Office (BA), and in the years 1998/99, 2006 and 2012 together with the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (BAuA).
All waves include measures of occupational skill requirements, the measure of technology (detailed information on the tools and machines used by the employees at the workplace), and types and levels of respondent's formal education. However, while some items were surveyed each time, others were not. Some methodological changes between the waves limit the longitudinal potential of the data as well.
Detailed information about these issues and descriptions on the level of single variables (i.e. for wave 2006) in the respective scientific use files for external researchers describes a report of our publication series.
The Employment Surveys are available for the scientific community as Scientific-Use-Files. These files can be accessed via GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences. The data can be ordered at:
The 2006 data are also available as a SUF at BIBB-FDZ. Data access for the scientific community to weakly anonymized variables of wave 2006 is organized via remote data access and/or through separate BIBB-FDZ workplaces for guest researchers. If you are interested in working with the data please select the data access or contact button.