Data Access

Release of the SHARE data

The SHARE data are distributed by SHARE-ERIC (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe – European Research Infrastructure Consortium) to registered users through the SHARE Research Data Center.

The SHARE Research Data Center (FDZ-SHARE) complies with the Criteria of the German Council for Social and Economic Data (PDF) (Rat für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsdaten, RatSWD) for providing access to microdata. The access provided by SHARE-ERIC meets the requirements of the European Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures (PDF) ("Wide Virtual Access" mode).

Access to the data collected and generated in the SHARE projects is provided free of charge for scientific use globally, subject to European Union and national data protection laws as well as the publicly available Conditions of Use.

Access services are rendered on behalf of SHARE-ERIC through the SHARE Research Data Center, operated by Centerdata located at Tilburg University in the Netherlands in cooperation with the Central SHARE Coordination Team at the SHARE BERLIN Institute (SBI) in Germany.

Available data sets

An overview of the up-to-date data sets of the different SHARE waves as well as additional data sets that are available via the SHARE Research Data Center can be found here: SHARE Data Releases.

Besides, several national record linkage projects have been implemented that enable the linkage of administrative records data sets to the SHARE data of the respective country. Details can be found here: Record Linkage Data.  

User registration and access to the data

Data access will be granted on an individual basis via the user registration procedure as described here: Become a user.

After successful registration the SHARE data can be downloaded by the individual user via the SHARE Research Data Center website.

Information on data updates and new releases

Registered users of the data are regularly informed about updates of data and new releases via email. Regarding the subsequent use of the data, users are supported by various information provided via the SHARE website and by a combination of central and national support points which answer questions and respond to user requests.

If you have any questions regarding the use of the data please consult the information provided on our website or contact the SHARE user support.

Important note and disclaimer

Please note that this SHARE website is the sole source for official information on the project and its data. You may, however, find information on the study elsewhere on the internet from non-authorised third parties (ranging from metadata on the project and data documentation to aggregated research results to programme code and so-called harmonisation files). If referring to or using such information, please be aware that it might be outdated or incorrect and that we cannot assume any responsibility and liability.

The official SHARE Research Data Center website is the sole online access point to the SHARE data. Here SHARE users can download the SHARE data after successful registration. If you, however, should happen to find copies of the actual SHARE data (or parts thereof) elsewhere on the internet, please inform us immediately about this breach of the SHARE Conditions of Use.