Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

Understanding Society, (UK Household Longitudinal Study), which began in 2009, is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex and the survey research organisations Verian Group (formerly Kantar Public) and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991.

The Understanding Society: Longitudinal Teaching Dataset, Waves 1-9, 2009-2018 is a teaching resource using data from Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, which interviews individuals in the sampled households every year. There are two target audiences – 1) lecturers who would like to use the data file provided for longitudinal methods teaching purposes, and 2) data users who are new to using longitudinal data and can get a better understanding of using longitudinal data by using the supplied analysis guidance which utilizes the data file.

The statistical software used to construct the dataset is Stata and the analysis guidance provided is accompanied by Stata syntax only. The datafile is also available to download in SPSS and tab-delimited text formats. The User Guide includes guidance on how to convert the datafile in Stata format to R.

A second teaching resource using the Understanding Society survey is also available, see SN 8465, Understanding Society: Ethnicity and Health Teaching Dataset.

For information on the main Understanding Society study, see SN 6614, Understanding Society and Harmonised BHPS.

Main Topics:

This study covers topics such as socio-demographic characteristics, education and labour market information, residential information, income, health and wellbeing, political behaviour and opinions, environmental attitudes and behaviours.