The Family barometers series was launched by the Population Research Institute, a subdivision of the Finnish Family Federation, in 1996. The annual surveys revolve round family life, but each barometer has also its own theme. These have included assistance between different generations, sufficiency of public support and services, the division of domestic responsibilities, work-life balance, parenting, child-rearing, and children's pastimes and hobbies.
The survey studied couple relationships and plans to have children of Finnish adults who had at maximum one child living at home at the time of data collection. Other main themes were job characteristics, characteristics of childhood home, and self-perceived health and well-being.
First, the respondents were asked about their childhood home: number of siblings, education of parents, age of parents when had first child, and other characteristics of the childhood home (e.g. single parent family, financial problems, conflicts, illnesses). One question surveyed the importance of religion to the respondent.
A number of questions focused on the respondent's job, exploring economic activity, type of contract, hours of work, and experiences of unemployment or fixed-term employment. The likelihood of certain changes happening in work or financial situation over the next two years (e.g. unemployment, job change, beginning studies) were charted, as well as R's commitment to work and motivation for working. The survey also investigated the respondents' commitment to family, feelings about family life, and views on gender equality and roles.
Health and well-being were surveyed by asking about self-perceived health, alcohol use, symptoms of stress, anxiety and exhaustion, weight and height, type of contraception used, number of close friends, frequency of contact with parents, feelings of loneliness, satisfaction with life in general and satisfaction with certain aspects of life (e.g. job, income, friendships, family life). Feelings of control over own life and trust in other people were also explored. The respondents were asked to choose from 51 adjectives those that described them well.
The next themes covered family planning and couple relationships. Planned and unplanned pregnancies, miscarriages, abortions, trying to conceive and infertility treatments were investigated. Some questions pertained to first couple relationships, and the number of marriages and cohabitations. Characteristics of, satisfaction with and conflicts in the current relationship were surveyed. Further questions studied the number of children, their years of birth, children from previous relationships, plans to have more children and when, and whether the spouse agreed with these views. The respondents were also asked to think what kind of consequences having children would have on the couple relationship, relationships with parents and friends, meaning of life and career.
Background variables included the respondent's gender, type of the municipality of residence, current couple relationship (marriage, cohabitation, steady relationship and from which year), study field and number of persons in the household, as well as R's and spouse's mother tongue, year of birth, basic and vocational education, economic activity and occupational status, monthly net income, and number of children.
A stratified sample of 7,000 persons was drawn from the population register of Finland. The sample size for women was 3,000 but 4,000 for men to ensure a sufficient number of male respondents. So, the population was stratified according to gender (men and women), age group (25-34 and 35-44) and the number of children (those who had no children aged under 18 living in the household and those who had one such child in the household). The reason for using age groups and number of children for stratification was based on the desire to sample a sufficient number of persons in the older age group who had at maximum one child aged under 18 living in the household.
Non-respondents received two reminder letters. The latter reminder letter sent to sampled males contained a shorter version of the paper questionnaire to encourage more men to respond and they were also offered an opportunity to answer an online questionnaire instead. The online questionnaire was similar to the shorter paper questionnaire. In the end, 18 per cent of sampled males completed the shorter paper questionnaire and 2 per cent the online questionnaire.
Four filled-in questionnaires were rejected because they were incomplete or inaccurate. The responses of persons not corresponding to the target group were also rejected. The remaining total number of cases was 2,670.