“Vivre/Leben/Vivere”: An interdisciplinary survey addressing progress and inequalities of aging over the past 30 years in Switzerland

• We present a survey design for the study of life and health conditions in aging.
• The survey is the third survey in a repeated cross-sectional study that began in 1979.
• The survey is based on a model of resource accumulation across the life course.
• The survey is interdisciplinary.

In this paper, we present the rationale and the design of “Vivre/Leben/Vivere” (VLV), a large interdisciplinary survey looking at the life and health conditions of individuals who are aged 65 and older and living in Switzerland. VLV is of the third survey of a repeated cross-sectional study, previously conducted in 1979 and 1994 in two French-speaking areas of Switzerland (the cantons of Geneva and Valais). Launched in 2011, VLV extends the original design to additional German and Italian-speaking areas and targets a sample of 4200 individuals. Quantitative data are collected by means of two questionnaires and a life history calendar, assessing current resources in multiple spheres of the individuals’ life (e.g. household conditions, physical and psychological health, social relations, participation, and values) and their accumulation across the life course. The objectives of VLV are twofold: first it aims to provide an updated view of life and health conditions of the population aged 65 and older in Switzerland, with a major concern in assessing diversity and inequalities. Second, VLV aims to compare these conditions to those observed in 1979 and 1994; hence, it aims providing means to question the sustainability of the positive trends, reported in the previous surveys. VLV is a rare opportunity in Europe to acquire exhaustive and cardinal knowledge about the heterogeneity of the life conditions of the aged and their changes over the past 30 years.