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Article History

Received: 29 November 2024

Accepted: 30 September 2025

First Online: 29 October 2025

Competing interests

: The authors declare no competing interests.

: This study is based on secondary analysis of survey data collected by the European Social Survey - European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ESS ERIC). The ESS ERIC has a dedicated Research Ethics Board that oversees all data collection activities and ensures compliance with Declaration on Professional Ethics of the International Statistical Institute. Ethical approval for the survey protocols were obtained prior to data collection. The ESS ERIC ensures compliance with applicable data protection regulations, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and national laws in participating countries. No additional ethical approval was required for this study, as the analysis relies exclusively on anonymised, publicly available data.

: Informed consent was obtained from all survey respondents prior to their participation. Respondents were informed both orally and in writing about the voluntary nature of the survey, the purpose of the research, the anonymity and confidentiality of their responses, and their right to withdraw at any time. For ESS Round 8, consent was documented by interviewers within the questionnaire during the fieldwork period (01 September 2016 - 20 March 2017). For CRONOS panel participants, informed consent to participate in the panel was obtained at two points: first, at the end of the ESS Round 8 interview (2016–2017), when respondents were invited to join the panel; and second, prior to the start of the first CRONOS survey, when respondents explicitly agreed to the collection and use of their data. No additional consent procedures were required for this secondary analysis of anonymised survey data.