Description: Topics covered in the questionnaire are: democracy and governance, national identity and pride, intergroup relations, education, moral issues, personal wellbeing index, poverty, taxation, crime and safety, wellbeing, decolonisation, transformative governance, batho pele, voting, respondent characteristics, household characteristics, personal and household income variables.

Of the targeted population of 3500, 3173 responses (90.7%) was realized.

The data set contains 3173 cases and 638 variables. Abstract: The South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS) is a nationally representative, cross-sectional survey that has been conducted on an annual basis by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) since its inception in 2003.

SASAS was developed with international and local assistance, and modelled on similar long-standing attitudinal survey series in the UK (British Social Attitudes: BSA), USA (General Social Survey: GSS) and Germany (German Social Survey: ALLBUS). The SASAS series is respected as a research infrastructure that provides a unique, long-term account of the changing nature of public values in modern South Africa. It therefore represents an important tool for better understanding our society and promoting evidence-based policies.

The three primary aims of SASAS are:

To measure and produce rigorous data about changes in public attitudes and behaviour patterns over time as our democracy matures.

To better understand how the attitudes, beliefs and behaviour of South Africans compared with citizens in other countries through collaboration with selected cross-national surveys.

To develop reliable social indicators of national progress based on the attitudes and judgements of citizens regarding key aspects of their society.

Face-to-face interview

National Population: Adults (aged 16 and older)

SASAS has been designed to yield a representative sample of 3500 adult South African citizens aged 16 and older (with no upper age limit), in households geographically spread across the country's nine provinces. The sampling frame used for the survey was based on the 2011 census and a set of small area layers (SALs). Estimates of the population numbers for various categories of the census variables were obtained per SAL. In this sampling frame special institutions (such as hospitals, military camps, old age homes, schools and university hostels), recreational areas, industrial areas and vacant SALs were excluded prior to the drawing of the sample.

Small area layers (SALs) were used as primary sampling units and the estimated number of dwelling units (taken as visiting points) in the SALs as secondary sampling units. In the first sampling stage the primary sampling units (SALs) were drawn with probability proportional to size, using the estimated number of dwelling units in an SAL as measure of size. The dwelling units as secondary sampling units were defined as "separate (non-vacant) residential stands, addresses, structures, flats, homesteads, etc." In the second sampling stage a predetermined number of individual dwelling units (or visiting points) were drawn with equal probability in each of the drawn dwelling units. Finally, in the third sampling stage a person was drawn with equal probability from all 16 year and older persons in the drawn dwelling units.

Three explicit stratification variables were used, namely province, geographic type and majority population group. As stated earlier, within each stratum, the allocated number of primary sampling units (which could differ between different strata) was drawn using proportional to size probability sampling with the estimated number of dwelling units in the primary sampling units as measure of size. In each of these drawn primary sampling units, seven dwelling units were drawn. This resulted in a sample of 3500 individuals.

A list of the 500 drawn SALs were given to geographic information specialists and maps were then created for each of the 500 areas, indicating certain navigational beacons such as schools, roads churches etc.

Selection of individuals: For each of the SASAS samples interviewers visited each visiting point drawn in the SALs (PSU) and listed all eligible persons for inclusion in the sample, that is all persons currently aged 16 years or older and resident at the selected visiting point. The interviewer then selected one respondent using a random selection procedure based on a Kish grid.