Interviewer Effect and Gender Equality: Ideal Age for Life Events in European Countries

The article examines the relationship between interviewer characteristics and responses to gender-specific questions in countries with different levels of gender equality. Existing literature provides two main approaches to explaining the interviewer effect: the social attribution model and the social distance model. According to the first approach, respondents change their answers depending on the characteristics of the interviewer; the second approach additionally considers the difference in the social characteristics of the respondent and the interviewer. This study examines the effects of the interviewer' gender (social attribution model) and the age difference between the respondent and the interviewer (social distance model) on the assessment of the ideal age for demographic events in the lives of men and women. Based on the European Social Survey's Round 9 data, the authors show that the difference in the assessment of the ideal age for the onset of demographic events in the lives of men and women is greater if the survey is conducted by a woman. At the same time, this effect is less pronounced in countries with high levels of gender equality. In addition, the age reported as ideal for life events is lower when the age difference between respondent and interviewer is greater, and this effect remains robust across all countries considered. The results of the study indicate the need to account for the characteristics of the interviewer when analyzing population survey data.