To date, two FRA surveys – EU-MIDIS I (2008) and EU-MIDIS II (2016) – have collected data on Muslims. Between the two surveys, there are 12 countries where both surveys have analysed Muslim respondents’ experiences from the same target group: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Malta, The Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. However, in Germany, Italy, Malta and Slovenia, there were slight differences in some of the target groups.
While both surveys collected data on issues such as discrimination, crime victimisation and rights awareness, results concerning living conditions such as poverty and housing were only collected during EU-MIDIS II.
In some instances, the wording of questions changed slightly between surveys, which may limit the comparability of results.
EU-MIDIS I and EU-MIDIS II both used a similar methodology, applying a multistage random selection of respondents. To optimise the sampling approach, EU-MIDIS II further developed the methodology. The different approaches and restrictions lead to differing geographical coverage for most of the target groups and countries, which may limit the comparability between both surveys. For example, the coverage of the target groups from North Africa and Turkey in The Netherlands is similar in both surveys but not identical, as ‘Zaanstad’ was added in EU-MIDIS II and therefore only covered this time.