An inconsistency between question wording in the ESS5 questionnaire and variable label in the ESS5 data file (edition 3.2) has been detected for variable D14 (PLCARCR). In the current edition of the ESS5 data, variable label for D14 is: "How quickly would police arrive at a violent crime/burglary scene near to where you live.". According to the questionnaire, the variable label should include reference to violent crime only.

Correct variable label for D14 (PLCARCR) is thus: "How quickly would police arrive at a violent crime scene near to where you live".

This error will be corrected in future editions of the ESS5 data.

All rounds of the ESS have been updated in a major upgrade of the ESS data and documentation 26.11.14. For an overview of the changes in variables and country data, see version notes for ESS1, ESS2, ESS3, ESS4, ESS5 and ESS6 respectively.

The ESS Data and Documentation section has been updated with a cumulative data file for the first six rounds of the ESS. The cumulative data are available from the ESS Cumulative Data Wizard, where users can customise their own subsets of data in different formats. The ESS Cumulative Data Wizard gives access to cumulative data from countries that have been included in the integrated ESS files in two or more rounds. All variables that have been asked in more than one round are included in the cumulative data file.

Sample design data files (SDDF) for Hungary and United Kingdom were added on 2nd of October 2014 and are available in SAS and SPSS format, along with a PDF file describing the structure and use of the SDDFs.

Sample design data files are now available from the ESS5 - 2010 Data download section for the following countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and United Kingdom. 

A new edition of data (2.1) from contact forms for ESS round 5 is now available for download in the ESS5 - 2010 Data download section.

The new release is due to amendments made in variable INTERVA (“Interview information for the sample unit”) for Cyprus.

New editions of the main data for ESS Round 4, edition 4.2 and ESS Round 5, edition 3.1 have been published 29.04.2014.

The new release includes the publication of post-stratification weights in the integrated files for ESS4 ed.4.2 and ESS5 ed.3.1, as well as corrected design weights for Israel, Slovakia (ESS4 and ESS5) and Turkey (ESS4). For further information on the upgraded files please refer to ESS4 version notes and ESS5 version notes.

This upgrade release is the beginning of a process of upgrading all published rounds to include post-stratification weights in all ESS resources. This process will be completed by mid-December 2014. Please note that the ESS Cumulative Data Wizard and ESS Multilevel Data are not included in the current upgrade.

We also kindly ask our users to note that a new ESS Weighting Guide has been published as part of this upgrade.

A systematic filter error was detected for a total of 973 cases in the Finnish data file. All respondents (N=910) coded 1 on F17a (PDWRK) or 1 (N=63) on F18 (CRPDWK) were erroneously routed away from F34b (RSNLVEM, "Main reason for leaving last employer"). These 973 cases were thus recoded from 66 "Not applicable" to 99 “No answer” on RSNLVEM by the ESS Data Archive.

Corrected design weights for Israel and Slovakia have been published. Until future releases of ESS5 data, these design weights should replace the erroneous weights currently (ESS5 edition 3.0) aligned with the Israeli (CNTRY=IL) and Slovakian (CNTRY=SK) cases in the data files.

This recommendation applies to Israeli and Slovakian ESS5 data accessed from all official europeansocialsurvey.org data distribution channels, including the Cumulative Data Wizard, the Multilevel Data resource as well as the Online Analysis (NESSTAR) resource.

Code 2 ("Folkeskole 9.-10. klasse") in EDLVFDDK and code 213 ("General ISCED 2A, access ISCED 3A general/all 3") in EDULVLFB are overestimated in Danish education variables for respondent's father. 565 of the cases coded 2/213 on EDLVFDDK/EDULVLFB respectively should be recoded to 5 ("Faglig udd. (håndværk, handel, landbrug mv.), F.eks. Faglært")/322 ("Vocational ISCED 3A/3B, access 5B/lower tier 5A") on EDLVFDDK/EDULVLFB. Revised versions of EDLVFDDK and EDULVLFB will be available in future releases of the ESS5 data.

All Israeli respondents in ESS4 and ESS5 have been assigned wrong design weights. New files containing the corrected variable DWEIGHT for Israel have been made available from the ESS4 and ESS5 Data download sections.