The Swedish Level-of-Living Surveys: a general overview and description of the event history data

This chapter gives an introduction to the Swedish Level-of-Living Surveys (LNU) data, to the history of and ideas behind the surveys, as well as to the content of the data. The Swedish LNU is almost an institution in empirical sociological research in Sweden. The event history data files are all available on the Swedish Social Science Data Service, together with the 1968, 1974, 1981 and 1991 Level-of-Living Surveys. The 1968 survey was a success in several ways. Professional interviewers from Statistics Sweden conducted almost 6,000 face-to-face interviews, each of around one hour’s duration, resulting in high data quality. It is in this light that the inclusion of event history data in the 1991 survey should be seen. The 1991 survey was funded by eight different national research councils, and the efforts made to raise the substantial sum of money needed to conduct face-to-face interviews were great.