The Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (NKPS) is the Dutch participant in the the international Gender and Generations Programme (GGP). NIDI, Utrecht University, the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and the University of Amsterdam participated in the development of this large-scale database on Dutch families. The NKPS received an investment grant from the Dutch national research foundation (NWO). The research questions revolve around the theme of solidarity, which is defined as ‘feelings of mutual affinity in family relationships and how these are expressed in behavioural terms’. Four waves of an extensive face-to-face interview have been conducted. The NKPS has four special features that make it highly innovative:
- it is large (N = 9,500 at Wave 1)
- it is a panel (prospective longitudinal design)
- it is multi-method (the data collection involves both structured interviews and in-depth open interviews), and
- it is multi-actor (the data are from individual respondents as well as from family members).
The NKPS is a large scale panel survey that allows the examination of family and kinship ties in the Netherlands. Scientific and societal challenges such as population ageing, international migration and changing fertility patterns are important for the development and maintenance of family relationships. Data from the NKPS provide researchers and policy makers with an important source to measure and study the dynamics of family relationships and to gain more insight into the causes and consequences of changes in family relationships.
The fieldwork for the first wave of the NKPS took place between 2002 and 2004. The fieldwork for the second wave was conducted in 2006 and 2007, the fieldwork for the third wave in 2010, and the fieldwork for the fourth wave in 2014. In 2007 NKPS joined the Generations and Gender Programme, a system of nationally comparative surveys and a contextual database, which aims to improve the knowledge base for policy-making in UNECE countries.
The data can be accessed via the GGP website. More information on the project is also available on the GGP website.
