The Australian Survey of Social Attitudes (AuSSA) is Australia’s main source of data for the scientific study of the social attitudes, beliefs and opinions of Australians, how they change over time, and how they compare with other societies.
The survey is used to help researchers better understand how Australians think and feel about their lives. It produces important information about the changing views and attitudes of Australians as we move through the 21st century. Similar surveys are run in other countries, so data from AuSSA survey also allows us to compare Australia with countries all over the world.
AuSSA is also the Australian component of the International Social Survey Project (ISSP). The ISSP is a cross-national collaboration on surveys covering important topics. Each year, survey researchers in some 40 countries each do a national survey using the same questions. Here are some examples of surveys in other countries that are the equivalent to AuSSA:
- General Social Survey (GSS), United States of America
- German General Social Survey (ALLBUS), Germany
- British Social Attitudes, Great Britain
The ISSP focuses on a special topic each year, repeating that topic from time to time. The topic for the upcoming 2022 survey is "Family and Changing Gender Roles". This is the fifth time this has been the topic of the survey, having previously been the theme for the survey in 1988, 1994, 2002 and 2012.
Data collection for the AuSSA 2022 is due to begin in May 2022, and due to complete in May 2023.
How will participants be selected?
AuSSA aims to survey a representative sample of adult Australians. The fairest way of doing that is to draw a random sample from the Australian Electoral Roll. This means every Australian citizen has an equal chance of having their views included in the survey, and means that researchers are able to use statistical techniques to make inferences about Australian society overall on the basis of characteristics of the sample.
We will randomly select at least 5000 citizens from the electoral roll. Each of them will be posted an explanatory letter, followed by a questionnaire booklet and reply paid envelope. Up to three reminder mailings will be sent for participants who do not return a booklet. We expect at least 1100 will return a completed questionnaire.
Selected questions
Questions asked of respondents will include topics such as the definition of family, perceptions of parenthood, income insecurity, attitudes towards marriage, and happiness and life satisfaction
Contributing questions to the AuSSA 2022
Running a high quality, nationally representative survey requires the support of individual researchers willing to include their own questions in return for sponsorship of the survey. The fee will be $1,000 (exc GST) per question (i.e. per 'tick') for the full sample of 1100, or $400 to be included in any one of the 4 sub-samples. Please contact surveys@acspri.org.au for more information. Each of the 4 waves of data collection is to a distinct sample (i.e. the design is a repeated cross sectional survey)
- The first wave of data collection is due to run in May 2022. Any contributed questions must be finalised by 1 April 2022.
- The second wave began data is due to run in August 2022.
- The third wave of data collection is due to run in November 2022.
- The fourth wave of data collection is due to run in February 2023.
Due to strong demand for including questions in the AuSSA 2022, no more contributions can be accepted. Please consider contributing to the AuSSA 2023
Access to results from AuSSA 2022
A summary (codebook) of the results from the AuSSA 2022 is available to view in your web browser
AuSSA data is now available to the public on the Australian Data Archive AuSSA 2022 Dataverse
For more information:
Tel. 1800 122 251 (free call)
Email: surveys@acspri.org.au