SHARE Project

SHARE is a research infrastructure which provides information about health, ageing and retirement in Europe.

About SHARE

The Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) is an ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) infrastructure for studying the effects of health, social, economic and environmental policies over the life-course of European citizens and beyond.

Project website

Summary of scientific activities

The survey was first conducted in 2004 in 11 countries. Currently, the survey is carried out in 28 European Union countries and Israel.

Latvia joined the SHARE project in 2017. The fieldwork in the 7th and 8th stages (2017–2021) was financed by the Commission's Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.

Since 2021, the fieldwork is financed from the state budget program of the Ministry of Education and Science. At the European level, the implementation of the project is monitored and coordinated by the Munich Center for the Economics of Aging in Germany.

SHARE data are available to the entire research community free of charge. Please read the Conditions of Use.

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Data Use

Data from the SHARE studies are currently used by more than 13,600 researchers worldwide, and each subsequent stage of the study provides new insights, as ageing should be studied over a long period of time. The data obtained in the SHARE study are available free of charge for registered researchers. Data can be used for scientific purposes without any restrictions.

To access the data obtained in the study, please read the terms of use and fill in the form available here. Data are only available after receipt of documents and successful registration. Application for approval must be sent to the SHARE Research Data Centre (CentERdata, Netherlands)
You should log in to the SHARE study data centre website after receipt of confirmation by entering your username and password. You can use the obtained username and password to access all data published on the SHARE website

The results of the survey may be used in science and politics to help find solutions to issues related to social security and healthcare. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic has used the data obtained in the SHARE study to prepare a law on long-term care by analysing the data associated with early retirement and employment among people over the age of 50. In France, the information obtained in the study was used to establish the proportion of citizens having functional restrictions and requiring accommodation with special adaptation.

At the international level, the data obtained in the SHARE project are used by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Health Organisation and the World Bank. For instance, the World Bank has used the collected data to identify migration flows between Germany and Turkey, and between France and Morocco.

In the European Union, several commissions use the data obtained in SHARE surveys in their studies, e. g.:

researchers from the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs use the data obtained in the SHARE survey to get additional information on long-term expenditures on retirement pensions and healthcare
researchers in the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety use the data obtained in the SHARE survey to develop a set of health indicators. The set of indicators is developed using the indicators of demographic, social and economic situation, health condition and their determinant factors. SHARE data are also used to calculate healthy life expectancy
The Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion uses the findings obtained in the SHARE study to prepare a report on employment and social growth in Europe