Survey participation in the Eighth Wave of the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). Based on Release 8.0.0.

This data documentation is meant to provide users of the Survey of Health, Ageing
and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) with a general overview about the participation of
respondents in the eighth wave of the survey. Because of the special circumstances connected
with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic this report differs from previous ones. At the
beginning of 2020, COVID-19 was spreading quickly across Europe, leading to a suspension
of SHARE fieldwork in all participating countries in March 2020. At this point, large parts of
the panel sample have already been interviewed, while only a small part of the planned
refreshment interviews could be conducted. The focus of this report is thus on the development
of the panel sample over time, i.e. the wave-to-wave participatory behavior of initial samples,
entrance patterns of new sample members, and success of achieving so-called end-of-live
interviews, usually with the partner or a close relative when the respondent has died. Detailed
information of household and individual participation in the baseline or refreshment samples
will only be reported after the release of the Wave 9 data. All numbers and figures reported in
this documentation are based on information from the SHARE sample management system
using Release 8.0.0, also including the 1st SHARE Corona Survey conducted in summer 2020.