In 1800, the population of Cyprus was approximately 185 thousand people, a population which would remain stagnant throughout most of the 19th century. However, following the re-administration of Cyprus from the Ottoman Empire to the United Kingdom during the 1878 Cyprus Convention, when it became an integral part of Britain's military presence in the Mediterranean, the population of Cyprus began to grow. It reached over 400,000 people by the beginning of the Second World War, but would plateau at approximately 580 thousand in the early-1960s, after Cyprus, like many British colonies in the decades following the Second World War, gained independence from the empire. Cyprus crises 1960s and 1970s There were several periods of conflict and political instability on either side of this transition, as nationalist uprisings led to eventual independence, but this was soon followed by an split between Cyprus' ethnic Greek and Turkish populations. To summarize, Turkish Cypriots, who made up just under twenty percent of the population, felt they were being given a minority status and were not treated as equal citizens to the Greek Cypriots; the 1960s were characterized by political crises and tensions, exacerbated by foreign pressure from the Greek and Turkish governments. In July 1974, the military regime in mainland Greece orchestrated a coup d'état in Cyprus, in an attempt to annex the island, but five days later Turkish forces invaded northern Cyprus, taking control of roughly one-third of the island within two months. Over one thousand people died in the invasion, before a ceasefire was established, and then almost one third of the entire population were relocated to the respective region of their ethnic origin. The United Nations established a buffer zone between the Greek and Turkish regions of Cyprus, which remains the de facto border between the two regions today. Post-split Cyprus Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, and the Eurozone in 2008. Cyprus is considered a developed nation with a high-income economy and booming tourism sector. Tensions between the Greek and Turkish regions of Cyprus have gradually eased in the decades since partition, with increased freedom of movement between the north and south; however, in 2020, Turkish oil probes in the Mediterranean have crossed into Cypriot waters, which has worsened relations with the EU and wider international community. Cyprus' population reached one million people in the early 2000s, and in 2020 it is estimated to be just over 1.2 million people.

Abstract

The World Values Survey (www.worldvaluessurvey.org) is a global network of social scientists studying changing values and their impact on social and political life, led by an international team of scholars, with the WVS association and secretariat headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. The survey, which started in 1981, seeks to use the most rigorous, high-quality research designs in each country. The WVS consists of nationally representative surveys conducted in almost 100 countries which contain almost 90 percent of the world’s population, using a common questionnaire. The WVS is the largest non-commercial, cross-national, time series investigation of human beliefs and values ever executed, currently including interviews with almost 400,000 respondents. Moreover the WVS is the only academic study covering the full range of global variations, from very poor to very rich countries, in all of the world’s major cultural zones. The WVS seeks to help scientists and policy makers understand changes in the beliefs, values and motivations of people throughout the world. Thousands of political scientists, sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists and economists have used these data to analyze such topics as economic development, democratization, religion, gender equality, social capital, and subjective well-being. These data have also been widely used by government officials, journalists and students, and groups at the World Bank have analyzed the linkages between cultural factors and economic development.

Geographic coverage

The survey covers Cyprus.

Analysis unit

• Household
• Individual

Universe

The WVS for Cyprus covers national population aged 18 years and over, for both sexes.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

As indicated in our initial plan, representative samples were taken covering both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Communities of Cyprus. In the WVS-Cyprus study, a sample of 1,200 people (600 people from both urban and rural areas for each community) were collected for the Islands total population of 900,000. Samples are representative of all the major geographic areas in Cyprus. The general population was divided into subsets, or strata, according to gender, age and place of residence covering all districts of the north and south of Cyprus. After stratifying the population, we selected the samples randomly within the strata. The samples chosen were based on a 95% confidence interval and a sampling error of ± 4.0%.

Remarks about sampling: Two Survey companies carried out the study under supervision of Dr. Birol Yesilada. On the Greek side of Cyprus, Intercollege Survey Research Center administered 600 face-to-face surveys in teams of 5 surveyors headed by team supervisor. On the Turkish side of Cyprus 550 surveys were carried out by KADEM. The two Research centers coordinated their survey efforts in the past and have participated in large scale surveys including the Eurobarometer and local survey projects.

Fieldwork: 1. We begin from the side of the road with odd numbers (1,3,5,7..) 2. We start from the first house at the beginning of the road. Then we leave one house behind, and knock on the next one. 3. If the age or the sex of the person is not applicable, we move to the next house. If they refuse to answer the questionnaire, we again move on to the next house. 4. Two-storey houses count as 2 separate houses. At the first such house we come across we knock on the door of the downstairs unit; on the next such house, we choose the upstairs unit. 5. On blocks of flats, we knock on the door of one flat per floor: specifically, the one that is situated on the right-hand side of the elevator/staircase, of each floor. 6. If we do not complete the required number of houses in a particular road, we turn right and we start again from the side where the odd numbers are. 7. We do not go to shops, neither to houses whose residents we happen to know (i.e. friends, relatives).

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Response rate

The response rate was 95% - higher than our expected rate of 85%. Total number of starting names/addresses 1265 - refusal at selected address 65 - full productive interview 1050 - partial productive interview 150.

Sampling error estimates

+/- 4.0%