Family Research and Demographic Analysis (FReDA)

Abstract

FReDA is a unique panel data infrastructure focused on family, partnership, and demography, taking a multidisciplinary approach that integrates sociology, economics, psychology, demography, and public health, with additional links to educational and political sciences. During the funding period, FReDA has collected four panel waves (2021-2024) for the original sample (FReDA Core), a refreshment sample was added and surveyed in 2025. In addition, FReDA maintains the samples of the German Family Panel pairfam (FReDA-pairfam). Each panel wave consists of two biannual sub-waves, i.e. respondents have been surveyed at 9 time-points in total until 2024. Respondents and their partners are interviewed in self-administered mode, mostly by computer-assisted web interviews (CAWI). The more than 200 000 interviews give a broad picture of life of the population aged 18-55 years including information on life histories, fertility, partnership, housework and care, generational relationships and support, mental health and well-being, personality and psychological scales, employment, income and wealth, and attitudes. FReDA’s scientific power is based on its large-scale, high-frequency, and multi-actor panel design and its harmonisation with the triennial Generation and Gender Survey (GGS) which allows comparative analyses across a large number of countries. FReDA stands out in the international research landscape, since it offers additional content over and above the GGS in a biannual panel that comprehensively encompasses the dynamic life courses of young and middle-aged adults and their families.