UNECE/EAD/Population Activities Unit

FFS is the acronym for the Fertility and Family Surveys which have been conducted in the 1990s in selected Member States of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and were co-ordinated by the PAU. The FFS project has been largely financed by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The objectives of the programme were to:

Conduct comparable Fertility and Family Surveys in about 20 ECE member countries (see Survey Design);
Create FFS standard national files and archive them at the PAU (see Standard national data Files);
Prepare national FFS Standard Country Reports (see Standard Tables and Publications); and
Carry out a programme of cross-country comparative studies (see Comparative Research).

National FFS activities co-ordinated by the FFS project include, among other things: questionnaire design, data entry, standard national files preparation, standard country report production and cross-country comparative analysis. National FFS activities not co-ordinated by the FFS project include, among other things, sample design, fieldwork and report writing in national languages.

Several bodies supported the FFS project (see Support). The programme’s participants were national population centres and national statistical offices, whose representatives comprised the FFS Informal Working Group. The FFS Advisory Group monitored and continues to monitor the FFS comparative research programme. The FFS Archiving Group is responsible for updating the documentation of the FFS project.

Research with the FFS data resulted in a wealth of publications, both at the national level and of a comparative nature (see Publications). To inform researchers involved in the FFS project and other interested persons of FFS project developments an FFS Newsletter was published. As a kind of end of project event an FFS Flagship Conference was organized in Brussels from 29 to 31 May 2000 (see Conferences and Training).

For the period 2000-03, the PAU launched a project called "Generations and Gender: Research into their behaviour and quality of life". Some activities related to the FFS project continue under this new project.