Simply get to know FReDA

The FReDA/GGS Autumn School offers an excellent opportunity to take a closer look at our panel and examine the potential of FReDA or the GGS itself. Currently, numerous participants are once again taking advantage of this opportunity to gain practical experience working with data sets from FReDA or the Generations and Gender Survey (GGS).

The ‘FReDA/GGS Autumn School’ is a three-day workshop organised by FReDA in cooperation with the research focus ‘Interdisciplinary Public Policy’ (IPP) from 10 to 12 September 2025 at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. It is aimed at researchers who work with FReDA data and would like an introduction to its analysis possibilities.

At the event, researchers from the FReDA project team will give you a practical introduction to working with the panel data, explain the FReDA questionnaires and discuss methodological issues. In hands-on sessions, participants will then have the opportunity to work with the data themselves and pursue their own research questions with the data set of more than 30,000 interviews. The FReDA team will be happy to support and answer all the questions of the participants throughout the workshop.

The workshop will be held in English and is aimed at advanced Bachelor's and Master's students, PhD students and postdocs with knowledge of Stata, R or SPSS - preferably Stata, as Stata will be used for the examples.

The programme of the FReDA/GGS Autumn School 2025 can be found here.

The programme of this year's Autumn School includes the following agenda:

Wednesday, September 10

13.00-13.30 Registration
13:30-15:00 Introduction to FReDA, Data-Access and Documentation
15:00-15:15 Coffee break
15:15-16:15 Practical Use of FReDA Data
16:15-17:15 Hands-On Session I
17:15-17:30 Welcoming of participants/Closing of the first day
17:30-19:00 Evening Reception

Thursday, September 11

9:30-10:15 GGS and its Relationship to FReDA
10:15-12:00 Hands-On Session II
12:00-13:00 Lunch break
13:00-13:45 Analysing Panel Data with FReDA
13:45-15:00 Hands-On Session III
15:00-15:15 Coffee break
15:15-16:00 pairfam and its Relationship to FReDA
16:00-17:00 Hands-On Session IV
19:00 Dinner at a local restaurant (Wirtshaus Zenz)

Friday, September 12

9:45-10:15 Analysing Dyadic Data with FReDA
10:15-11:30 Hands-On Session V
11:30-11:45 Evaluation
11:45-12:00 Closing of the Autumn School
12:00 Lunch (optional) & goodbye

A flyer with some brief facts of FReDA can be found here.

If you have any questions about the workshop, please contact the relevant contact address at the Institute of Sociology at Mainz University or at freda@bib.bund.de.

FReDA is an interdisciplinary long-term study on families and partnerships in Germany that surveys people between the ages of 18 and 49 twice a year. The data from the sample is available free of charge to the scientific community for scientific and non-commercial purposes. Further information can be found on the FReDA website.

The GGS is a survey of life course and family dynamics in different countries. It surveys people aged 18 to 79 and conducts follow-up surveys at three and six year intervals to track the development of people's lives. Further information can be found here.