Study title

Finnish County Election Study 2022

Dataset ID Number

FSD3825

Persistent identifiers

https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3825
https://doi.org/10.60686/t-fsd3825

Data Type

Quantitative

Authors

• von Schoultz, Åsa (University of Helsinki)
• Rapeli, Lauri (Åbo Akademi University)
• Söderlund, Peter (Åbo Akademi University)

Abstract

The survey charted Finns' opinions on the 2022 county elections and wellbeing services counties. The survey examined respondents' political participation, political attitudes, party allegiance, candidate and party choices and voting behaviour. The data also includes questions on future prospects of Finland. The county elections survey was carried out by the Finnish election study consortium, a consortium of election and democracy researchers from several universities.

First, the respondent was asked about their interest in politics and their satisfaction with the functioning of democracy in Finland. Then, the respondent was asked how much he/she followed the county elections through different media and how often respondent discussed politics with other people. The respondents' opinions on voting, democracy, and forms of political decision-making were surveyed. Satisfaction with the political system was assessed by asking how much the respondent trusts various institutions, such as the government, political parties, the municipal council, the media, the Finnish institute for health and welfare and the regional state administrative agency. Next, the respondent's opinions were surveyed using a variety of statements related to county elections and local democracy. Respondents were also asked to rank in order of importance whom the county councillor should primarily represent. The respondent was also asked about access to information on county elections.

The next topic was political parties. Respondents were asked for their opinion on different political parties, and if they felt close to any political party. Respondents were also asked to place themselves on the left-right axis and on the value-liberal-conservative scale. The future direction of Finland was explored through attitudinal questions on issues such as multiculturalism, Christian values, climate change, government regulation and taxation. Next, respondents were asked about voting in county elections. Respondents were asked about not voting and the obviousness of not voting. Those who voted in the elections were asked in more detail about the party candidate they voted for, whether the candidate was a resident of their county area and at what point they made their voting decision. Finally, questions were asked about wellbeing services counties. Respondents were asked whether public money should be spent more, the same or less on health care than at present. In addition, a number of questions were asked on issues such as the services provided by the wellbeing services counties and by their own municipality, taxation and user charges.

Background variables included, among others, the respondent's year of birth, gender, education, marital status, wellbeing services county, occupational status, employer type, mother tongue, languages used at home, type of municipality of residence, type of dwelling, gross annual household income, number of people in the household, number of children, membership of an ethnic minority group, preferred method of accessing health services and party affiliation.

Keywords

democracy; elections; electoral candidates; health services; mass media; political attitudes; political participation; political parties; politics; regional government; regional policy; social influence; social services; trust; voting

Topic Classification

• Social sciences (Fields of Science Classification)
• Elections (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Political behaviour and attitudes (CESSDA Topic Classification)
• Social change (CESSDA Topic Classification)

Series

Individual datasets

Distributor

Finnish Social Science Data Archive

Access

The dataset is (B) available for research, teaching and study.

Data Collector

• Taloustutkimus

Data Producers

• Election Study Consortium

Funders

• Ministry of Justice

Time Period Covered

2022

Collection Dates

2022-01-24 – 2022-03-09

Nation

Finland

Geographical Coverage

Wellbeing services counties

Analysis/Observation Unit Type

Individual

Universe

People aged 18-80 living in Finland and entitled to vote in the Finnish county elections 2022

Time Method

Cross-section

Sampling Procedure

Probability: Simple random

On behalf of the National Election Study Consortium, Taloustutkimus carried out a survey of people entitled to vote in the Finnish county elections. Finnish county elections were not held in Helsinki and Åland. A random sample of 5,500 persons was selected from the Finnish population register. A cover letter and a paper questionnaire were sent to the sample by post. The cover letter also included instructions on how to complete the survey online. The questionnaire could be answered in Finnish and Swedish. Three reminders were sent to the respondents, either in paper form or by text message, if necessary. There were 1144 responses, of which 623 were given online and 521 on paper.

Collection Mode

Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based (CAWI)

Self-administered questionnaire: Paper

Research Instrument

Structured questionnaire

Response Rate

20.8

Data File Language

Downloaded data package may contain different language versions of the same files.

The data files of this dataset are available in the following languages: Finnish.

FSD translates quantitative data into English on request, free of charge. More information on ordering data translation.

Data Version

1.0

Completeness of Data and Restrictions

For identification reasons, the researchers have removed the open-ended question relating to the respondent's ethnic minority group (18).

To prevent identification of respondents, two open-ended responses (AV20, T10_SO) have been removed from the data at FSD. For the same reason, annual household income over 300 000 euro (T13) was top-coded. In addition, the number of persons in the household (T14YHT) was top-coded as 7 or more, and data for these respondents were removed from the number of children variables (14L_1, T14L_2).

Weighting

The data contain a weight variable "weights" which weights the sample to match the electoral district distributions, mother tongue, age, gender and education in the population and as well as the actual vote share of parties (including information on non-voting).

Citation Requirement

The data and its creators shall be cited in all publications and presentations for which the data have been used. The bibliographic citation may be in the form suggested by the archive or in the form required by the publication.

Bibliographical Citation

von Schoultz, Åsa (University of Helsinki) & Rapeli, Lauri (Åbo Akademi University) & Söderlund, Peter (Åbo Akademi University): Finnish County Election Study 2022 [dataset]. Data version 1.0 (2024-09-10). Finnish Social Science Data Archive [distributor]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.60686/t-fsd3825; URN: https://urn.fi/urn:nbn:fi:fsd:T-FSD3825

Deposit Requirement

Notify FSD of all publications where you have used the data by sending the citation information to user-services.fsd@tuni.fi.

Disclaimer

The original data creators and the archive bear no responsibility for any results or interpretations arising from the reuse of the data.

FSD has not been informed of any publications related to the data.