Survey Design and Data

This chapter outlines the survey design and data harmonisation strategy underpinning the book’s comparative analysis of social life during the COVID-19 pandemic in France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. It introduces four longitudinal panel studies—Coping with Covid-19 (CoCo) as part of the Longitudinal Internet Studies for Social Sciences (ELIPSS), the Mannheim Corona Study (MCS) as part of the German Internet Panel (GIP), Response of Italian Public Opinion to the COVID-19 Emergency (ResPOnsE), and Understanding Society—and details their sampling strategies, fieldwork adaptations, and response rates. Given the lack of harmonised cross-national data, the chapter explains the post-hoc harmonisation to ensure comparability across countries and time periods. It also discusses the operationalisation of key variables such as health, wellbeing, employment status, and political preferences, while acknowledging methodological challenges. The chapter lays the foundation for subsequent empirical analyses throughout the volume.