Welcome to the World Values Survey site

 

Welcome to the World Values Survey!

World Values Survey (WVS) is a global research project that explores people’s values and beliefs, their stability or change over time and their impact on social and political development of the societies in different countries of the world.

WVS started in 1981 and quickly became one of the most widely-used and authoritative cross-national and time-series surveys covering almost 120 societies or nearly 95% of the world’s population.

WVS shows pervasive changes in what people want out of life and what they believe. In order to monitor these changes, WVS has executed seven waves of surveys from 1981 to 2020. Representative national samples of each society are interviewed, using a standardized questionnaire that measures support for democracy, tolerance to foreigners and ethnic minorities, support for gender equality, the role of religion and changing levels of religiosity, the impact of globalization, attitudes toward the environment, work, family, politics, national identity, culture, diversity, insecurity, subjective well-being, and etc.

The findings are valuable for policy makers seeking to build civil society and democratic institutions in developing countries. The WVS data is also frequently used by governments around the world, scholars, students, journalists and international organizations and institutions such as the World Bank and the United Nations.

In 2017, the next 7th round of WVS survey commenced. By early 2020, WVS team plans on conducting the survey in up to 80 world countries and societies. Round 7 will provide new data on social, political, economic, religious values; trust to social and political institutions, social exclusion, security, tolerance, migration, corruption, development of science and technology, international organizations and much more.

WVS activities are coordinated by the World Values Survey Association (WVSA). WVSA in a non-profit research organization with its Legal Seat in Sweden. WVSA Secretariat - the Global Headquarters - is located in Vienna, Austria. WVSA Data archive is based at the JDS Institute in Madris, Spain.

Here you can download our data and publications, learn about the WVSA, its history, research network and forthcoming events.

 
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