Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, is a longitudinal survey of the members of approximately 40,000 households (at Wave 1) in the United Kingdom. The overall purpose of Understanding Society is to provide high quality longitudinal data about subjects such as health, work, education, income, family, and social life to help understand the long term effects of social and economic change, as well as policy interventions designed to impact upon the general well-being of the UK population. The Understanding Society main survey sample consists of a large General Population Sample plus three other components: the Ethnic Minority Boost Sample, the former British Household Panel Survey sample and the Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Boost Sample.

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: Calendar Year Dataset, 2021, is designed to enable cross-sectional analysis of individuals and households relating specifically to their annual interviews conducted in the year 2021, and, therefore, combine data collected in three waves (Waves 11, 12 and 13). It has been produced from the same data collected in the main Understanding Society study and released in the longitudinal datasets SN 6614 (End User Licence) and SN 6931 (Special Licence). Such cross-sectional analysis can, however, only involve variables that are collected in every wave in order to have data for the full sample panel. The 2021 dataset is the second of a series of planned Calendar Year Datasets to facilitate cross-sectional analysis of specific years. Full details of the Calendar Year Dataset sample structure (including why some individual interviews from 2022 are included), data structure and additional supporting information can be found in the document '9193_calendar_year_dataset_2021_user_guide'.

As multi-topic studies, the purpose of Understanding Society is to understand the short- and long-term effects of social and economic change in the UK at the household and individual levels. The study has a strong emphasis on domains of family and social ties, employment, education, financial resources, and health. Understanding Society is an annual survey of each adult member of a nationally representative sample. The same individuals are re-interviewed in each wave approximately 12 months apart. When individuals move, they are followed within the UK, and anyone joining their households is also interviewed as long as they are living with them. The fieldwork period for a single wave is 24 months. Data collection uses computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and web interviews (from wave 7) and includes a telephone mop-up. From March 2020 (the end of wave 10 and 2nd year of wave 11), due to the coronavirus pandemic, face-to-face interviews were suspended, and the survey has been conducted by web and telephone only but otherwise has continued as before. One person completes the household questionnaire. Each person aged 16 or older participates in the individual adult interview and self-completed questionnaire. Youths aged 10 to 15 are asked to respond to a paper self-completion questionnaire. In 2020, an additional frequent web survey was separately issued to sample members to capture data on the rapid changes in people’s lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic (see SN 8644). The COVID-19 Survey data are not included in this dataset.

Further information may be found on the Understanding Society main stage webpage and links to publications based on the study can be found on the Understanding Society Latest Research webpage.

Co-funders

In addition to the Economic and Social Research Council, co-funders for the study included the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the Department for Transport, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Community and Local Government, the Department of Health, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Department of Environment and Rural Affairs, and the Food Standards Agency.

End User Licence and Special Licence versions:

There are two versions of the Calendar Year 2021 data. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement, and the other is a Special Licence (SL) version. The SL version contains month and year of birth variables instead of just age, more detailed country and occupation coding for a number of variables and various income variables have not been top-coded (see the document '9194_eul_vs_sl_variable_differences' for more details). Users are advised to first obtain the standard EUL version of the data to see if they are sufficient for their research requirements. The SL data have more restrictive access conditions; prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version. The main longitudinal versions of the Understanding Society study may be found under SNs 6614 (EUL) and 6931 (SL).

Low- and Medium-level geographical identifiers produced for the mainstage longitudinal dataset can be used with this Calendar Year 2021 dataset, subject to SL access conditions. See the User Guide for further details.

Suitable data analysis software

These data are provided by the depositor in Stata format. Users are strongly advised to analyse them in Stata. Transfer to other formats may result in unforeseen issues. Stata SE or MP software is needed to analyse the larger files, which contain about 1,900 variables.

From April 2020 participants from our main Understanding Society sample have been asked to complete a short web-survey. This survey covers the changing impact of the pandemic on the welfare of UK individuals, families and wider communities. Participants complete a regular survey, which includes core content designed to track changes, alongside variable content adapted as the coronavirus situation develops. Researchers will be able to link the data from this web survey to answers respondents have given in previous (and future) waves of the annual Understanding Society survey.

Understanding Society (the 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 Harmonized Histories is an international comparative dataset, created through harmonising data from existing surveys into one common format. The aim of Harmonized Histories is to facilitate cross-national research on topics related to transition to adulthood, family formation, and childbearing. The dataset focuses on fertility and partnership histories but also captures information on socio-economic status, place of residence and information on the childhood family. You can find more information about Harmonized Histories and access to the datasets from other countries via the Generations & Gender Programme (GGP) website.

Two datasets are provided. The first includes all people aged 16 or over who participated in the full interview of Wave 1 of the Understanding Society project and the data as is collected at Wave 1. The second dataset follows the people who are in the first dataset prospectively. Thus, it includes all the retrospective information from the first dataset and has been updated when things changed, for instance the partners got married or had children. For more information please refer to the User Guide.

Harmonized Histories uses Understanding Society for data on the UK. As Harmonized Histories is a cross-national project, please note that the variable naming conventions and terminology used in this dataset are different to the standard Understanding Society naming and terms.

Further information may also be found on the Understanding Society mainstage webpage and links to publications based on the study can be found on the Understanding Society "https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/research/publications"> Latest Research webpage.

Understanding Society acknowledges Professor Brienna Perelli-Harris, Dr Niels Blom and Karolin Kubisch for making this dataset available to Understanding Society.

Suitable data analysis software
These data are provided by the depositor in Stata format. Users are strongly advised to analyse them in Stata, although SPSS and tab-delimited text versions are also available if needed. Users should note that transfer to other software formats may result in unforeseen issues.

Understanding Society (the 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: Calendar Year Dataset, 2021, is designed to enable cross-sectional analysis of individuals and households relating specifically to their annual interviews conducted in the year 2021, and, therefore, combine data collected in three waves (Waves 11, 12 and 13). It has been produced from the same data collected in the main Understanding Society study and released in the longitudinal datasets SN 6614 (End User Licence) and SN 6931 (Special Licence). Such cross-sectional analysis can, however, only involve variables that are collected in every wave in order to have data for the full sample panel. The 2021 dataset is the second of a series of planned Calendar Year Datasets to facilitate cross-sectional analysis of specific years. Full details of the Calendar Year Dataset sample structure (including why some individual interviews from 2022 are included), data structure and additional supporting information can be found in the document '9194_calendar_year_dataset_2020_user_guide'.

As multi-topic studies, the purpose of Understanding Society is to understand the short- and long-term effects of social and economic change in the UK at the household and individual levels. The study has a strong emphasis on domains of family and social ties, employment, education, financial resources, and health. Understanding Society is an annual survey of each adult member of a nationally representative sample. The same individuals are re-interviewed in each wave approximately 12 months apart. When individuals move, they are followed within the UK, and anyone joining their households is also interviewed as long as they are living with them. The fieldwork period for a single wave is 24 months. Data collection uses computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and web interviews (from wave 7) and includes a telephone mop-up. From March 2020 (the end of wave 10 and 2nd year of wave 11), due to the coronavirus pandemic, face-to-face interviews were suspended, and the survey has been conducted by web and telephone only but otherwise has continued as before. One person completes the household questionnaire. Each person aged 16 or older participates in the individual adult interview and self-completed questionnaire. Youths aged 10 to 15 are asked to respond to a paper self-completion questionnaire. In 2020, an additional frequent web survey was separately issued to sample members to capture data on the rapid changes in people’s lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic (see SN 8644). The COVID-19 Survey data are not included in this dataset.

Further information may be found on the Understanding Society main stage webpage and links to publications based on the study can be found on the Understanding Society Latest Research webpage.

Co-funders

In addition to the Economic and Social Research Council, co-funders for the study included the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the Department for Transport, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Community and Local Government, the Department of Health, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Department of Environment and Rural Affairs, and the Food Standards Agency.

End User Licence and Special Licence versions:

There are two versions of the Calendar Year 2021 data. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement, and the other is a Special Licence (SL) version. The SL version contains month and year of birth variables instead of just age, more detailed country and occupation coding for a number of variables and various income variables have not been top-coded (see xxxx_eul_vs_sl_variable_differences for more details). Users are advised to first obtain the standard EUL version of the data to see if they are sufficient for their research requirements. The SL data have more restrictive access conditions; prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version. The main longitudinal versions of the Understanding Society study may be found under SNs 6614 (EUL) and 6931 (SL).

Low- and Medium-level geographical identifiers produced for the mainstage longitudinal dataset can be used with this Calendar Year 2021 dataset, subject to SL access conditions. See the User Guide for further details.

Suitable data analysis software

These data are provided by the depositor in Stata format. Users are strongly advised to analyse them in Stata. Transfer to other formats may result in unforeseen issues. Stata SE or MP software is needed to analyse the larger files, which contain about 1,900 variables.

Understanding Society (the 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.

For details of the main Understanding Society study, please see study number 6614.

Innovation Panel

The Innovation Panel is designed for experimental and methodological research relevant to longitudinal surveys. As far as practical its design, content, and data collection procedures are similar to the main stage Understanding Society survey. It is a multi-topic household survey representative of the population of Great Britain. Data collection takes place annually using computer assisted personal interviewing (CAPI), web surveys and telephone interviewing (CATI) to a small extent. One person completes the household questionnaire. Each person aged 16 or older answers the individual adult interview, including and self-completion questionnaire. Young people aged 10 to 15 years are asked to respond to a paper self-completion questionnaire. The Innovation Panel has multiple experimental studies in which households or individuals are randomly assigned to a particular instrument or survey procedure. Experiments can relate to survey procedures, questionnaire design, or substantive social science questions. The experiments are described in the User Manual and in Understanding Society Working Papers. Wave 12 included an experiment involving the collection of biomeasures by nurses, interviewers and respondents themselves. The biomeasures included in the experiment were: height, weight, blood pressure, venous and dried blood samples and hair samples. Biomarkers have been derived from the different blood and hair samples to compare analytes across sample types. Due to COVID-19 Waves 13 and 14 were implemented using computer assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) and web surveys. Wave 15 included additional data on body measurements. Respondents were asked to install the BodyVolume app on their smartphone or tablet (iOS or Android) and use it after the interview to take two photos of themselves. The app used the body outlines along with profile information that the respondent entered in the app (age, sex, height, weight, level of activity) to calculate measures including waist and hip circumference, total body fat, visceral body fat, and lengths of different body parts. Wave 16 included an experiment asking parents of children aged under 16 to supply health related information from the child’s red book. Respondents were also asked to install the Sea Hero Quest app and play a game that measures spatial cognition.

There are two primary versions of the Innovation Panel data. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement, and the other is a Special Licence (SL) version (available under SN 7083). The SL version contains month and year of birth variables in addition to age, county variables, more detailed country and occupation coding for a number of variables; and various income variables have not been top-coded (see the documentation available with the SL version for more detail on the differences). In addition, there are a number of SL geographical datasets that are designed to be used in conjunction with the primary datasets. Low- and Medium-level geographical identifiers are also available subject to SL access conditions and fine detail geographic data are available under more restrictive Secure Access conditions that contains British National Grid postcode grid references (at 1m resolution) for the unit postcode of each household surveyed.

Further information may be found on the Understanding Society main stage webpage and links to publications based on the study can be found on the Understanding Society Latest Research webpage.

Latest edition information

For the 13th edition (November 2024), Wave 16 has been deposited with accompanying documentation. All previous waves have also been redeposited with various corrections - see '7083_ip_waves_1-15_changes_collated.pdf' for details of the changes.

Co-funders

In addition to the Economic and Social Research Council, co-funders for the study included the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the Department for Transport, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Community and Local Government, the Department of Health, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Department of Environment and Rural Affairs, and the Food Standards Agency.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.Understanding Society (the 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 Kantar Public and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991. The Understanding Society COVID-19 Study is a regular survey of households in the UK. The aim of the study is to enable research on the socio-economic and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the short and long term. The surveys started in April 2020 and took place monthly until July 2020. From September 2020 they take place every other month. They complement the annual interviews in the Understanding Society study.This dataset contains school code variables for the Understanding Society COVID-19 study (SN 8644).A file is provided for the fifth web wave of the Understanding Society COVID-19 study, the only one that school information has currently been gathered for. For each child it contains: state school code, country of state school, private school name and private school town variables for both mother and father responses. A child personal identification serial number (pidp_c) is also provided for matching to the main data in SN 8644.In addition, this dataset contains a file of school code variables that can be matched to a dataset released with the main Understanding Society COVID-19 study containing data taken from waves 10 and 11 of the main Understanding Society survey specifically for the respondents in the Understanding Society COVID-19 study. Child school codes are only available for Wave 11 as they are only collected in odd-numbered waves. For each child it contains the state school code and country of state school variables as well as a personal identification serial number (pidp) and a household identification serial number for wave 11 (jk_hidp). Further details on the files in this dataset can be found in the Understanding Society COVID-19 User Guide.Additional information can be found on the Understanding Society COVID-19 website, including Data documentation. A list of Understanding Society COVID-19 Research Outputs (regularly updated) is also available. New edition informationFor the second edition (January 2021), both previously deposited files have been revised to include a significant number of additional school codes resulting from manual coding. For further details please refer to the UKHLS COVID-19: Data Changes document, included in the main COVID-19 study (SN 8644).

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.

This release combines fourteen waves of Understanding Society data with harmonised data from all eighteen waves of the BHPS. As multi-topic studies, the purpose of Understanding Society and BHPS is to understand short- and long-term effects of social and economic change in the UK at the household and individual levels. The study has a strong emphasis on domains of family and social ties, employment, education, financial resources, and health. Understanding Society is an annual survey of each adult member of a nationally representative sample. The same individuals are re-interviewed in each wave approximately 12 months apart. When individuals move they are followed within the UK and anyone joining their households are also interviewed as long as they are living with them. The study has five sample components: the general population sample; a boost sample of ethnic minority group members; an immigrant and ethnic minority boost sample (from wave 6); participants from the BHPS; and a second general population boost sample added at this wave. In addition, there is the Understanding Society Innovation Panel (which is a separate standalone survey (see SN 6849)). The fieldwork period is for 24 months. Data collection uses computer assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and web interviews (from wave 7), and includes a telephone mop-up. From March 2020 (the end of wave 10 and the 2nd year of wave 11), due to the coronavirus pandemic, face-to-face interviews were suspended, and the survey was conducted by web and telephone only, but otherwise has continued as before. Face-to-face interviewing was resumed from April 2022. One person completes the household questionnaire. Each person aged 16 is invited to complete the individual adult interview and self-completed questionnaire. Parents are asked questions about their children under 10 years old. Youths aged 10 to 15 are asked to respond to a self-completion questionnaire. For the general and BHPS samples biomarker, genetic and epigenetic data are also available. The biomarker data, and summary genetics and epigenetic scores, are available via UKDS (see SN 7251); detailed genetics and epigenetics data are available by application (see below). In 2020-21 an additional frequent web survey was separately issued to sample members to capture data on the rapid changes in people’s lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic (see SN 8644). Participants are asked consent to link their data to wide-ranging administrative data sets (see below).

Further information may be found on the Understanding Society Main stage webpage and links to publications based on the study can be found on the Understanding Society Latest Research webpage.

Co-funders

In addition to the Economic and Social Research Council, co-funders for the study included the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the Department for Transport, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Community and Local Government, the Department of Health, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Department of Environment and Rural Affairs, and the Food Standards Agency.

End User Licence, Special Licence and Secure Access versions:

There are three versions of the main Understanding Society data with different access conditions. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement (this study), one is a Special Licence (SL) version (SN 6931) and the third is a Secure Access version (SN 6676). The SL version contains month as well as year of birth variables, more detailed country and occupation coding for a number of variables, various income variables that have not been top-coded, and other potentially sensitive variables (see 6931_eul_vs_sl_variable_differences document available with the SL version for full details of the differences). The Secure Access version, in addition to containing all the variables in the SL version, also contains day of birth as well as Grid Reference geographical variables. Users are advised to first obtain the standard EUL version of the data to see if they are sufficient for their research requirements. The SL and Secure Access versions of the data have more restrictive access conditions and prospective users of those versions should visit the catalogue entries for SN 6931 and SN 6676 respectively for further information.

Low- and Medium-level geographical identifiers are also available subject to SL access conditions; see SNs 6666, 6668-6675, 7453-4, 7629-30, 7245, 7248-9 and 9169-9170. Schools data are available subject to SL access conditions in SN 7182. Higher Education establishments for Wave 5 are available subject to SL access conditions in SN 8578. Interviewer Characteristics data, also subject to SL access conditions is available in SN 8579. In addition, a fine detail geographic dataset (SN 6676) is available under more restrictive Secure Access conditions that contains National Grid postcode grid references (at 1m resolution) for the unit postcode of each household surveyed, derived from ONS Postcode Directories (ONSPD). For details on how to make an application for Secure Access dataset, please see the SN 6676 catalogue record.

How to access genetic and/or bio-medical sample data from Understanding Society:

Information on how to access genetics and epigenetics data directly from the study team is available on the Understanding Society Accessing data webpage.

Linked administrative data

Linked Understanding Society / administrative data are available on a number of different platforms. See the Understanding Society Data linkage webpage for details of those currently available and how they can be accessed.

Latest edition information

For the 19th edition (November 2024) Wave 14 data has been added. Other minor changes and corrections have also been made to Waves 1-13. Please refer to the revisions document for full details.

m_hhresp and n_hhresp files updated, December 2024

In the previous release (19th edition, November 2024), there was an issue with household income estimates in m_hhresp and n_hhresp where a household resides in a new local authority (approx. 300 households in wave 14). The issue has been corrected and imputation models re-estimated and imputed values updated for the full sample. Imputed values will therefore change compared to the versions in the original release. The variable affected is n_ctband_dv.

Suitable data analysis software

These data are provided by the depositor in Stata format. Users are strongly advised to analyse them in Stata. Transfer to other formats may result in unforeseen issues. Stata SE or MP software is needed to analyse the larger files, which contain over 2,047 variables.

This dataset contains Local Authority District (LAD) geographic variables for each wave of the BHPS and a household identification serial number for file matching to the main BHPS data. This dataset is subject to restrictive access conditions, different to those for the main BHPS: see Information box on the right or Access section below.

LADs: There are two different releases available for Local Authority Districts (LAD) linked to the British Household Panel Survey.

* SN 6027 provides the LAD codes as used by official statistics and are therefore linkable. The code is four digit (except for Northern Ireland). Further information - including a full list of codes - may be found in the studies' user guides.

* SN 6028 gives codes created specifically for the BHPS, where the LADs were aggregated if their population fell below 120,000 in 1991 (for reasons of preventing disclosure). These codes are not linkable to other published statistics. They are still provided to users because until recently they were the only LAD codings available and some users may want to update their analyses using the old codes. Further information - including a full list of codes - may be found in the studies' user guides.

Latest edition: For the fourth edition (January 2014) revised geographic data files for each wave have been deposited. The documentation has also been updated.

The main British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) is conducted by the ESRC UK Longitudinal Studies Centre (ULSC), together with the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex. In addition to conducting the BHPS and disseminating it to the research community, ISER undertakes a programme of research based on panel data, using the BHPS and other national panels to monitor and measure social change.

The main objective of the BHPS is to further understanding of social and economic change at the individual and household level in the UK, and to identify, model and forecast such changes and their causes and consequences in relation to a range of socio-economic variables. It is conducted as a longitudinal study, where each adult member (aged 16 years and over) of a sampled household is interviewed annually. If individuals leave their original household, all adult members of their new households are interviewed. Children are also interviewed. For full details of the BHPS methodology, sampling, changes over time, and a complete set of documentation, see the main BHPS study, held at the UK Data Archive under SN 5151.

Understanding Society:
From Wave 19, the BHPS has been subsumed into a new longitudinal study called Understanding Society, or the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), conducted by ISER. The BHPS Wave 19 formed part of Understanding Society Wave 2 (January 2010 - March 2011). The BHPS fieldwork period therefore moved from September-April to January-March. This means that the gap between interviews 18 and 19 for the BHPS sample ranges between 16 and 30 months rather than the standard 12 months. From Wave 2, the BHPS sample has been a permanent part of the larger study and interviews are conducted annually again. BHPS sample members have an identifier within the Understanding Society datasets, allowing BHPS users to match BHPS Wave 1-18 data to Understanding Society. The main Understanding Society study, held under SN 6614 now includes harmonised BHPS data in addition to the main Understanding Society files. Further information is available on the Understanding Society web site.

Understanding Society (the 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.

This dataset contains Wellbeing Acorn geodemographic segmentation codes (group and type) for each household in every wave of Understanding Society, together with a household identification number (hidp) allowing it to be linked to the main Understanding Society data files. The dataset is produced by matching the Wellbeing Acorn segmentation against every Understanding Society household at the postcode level.

The Wellbeing Acorn segmentation system itself is developed and maintained by CACI Ltd and is designed by analysing demographic data, social factors, health and wellbeing characteristics in order to provide an understanding of the population’s wellbeing across the country. Group is the higher layer containing 5 segments providing a snapshot of the population from the least healthy to the healthiest. The more granular level is Type, containing 25 segments, to provide more detailed insights about the population to better understand their demographic, lifestyle and health characteristics. For details on the Acorn segmentation structure and how is it is produced please refer to the documentation and the Caci website.

These data have more restrictive access conditions than those available under the standard End User Licence (see 'Access data' tab for more information).

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 Kantar Public and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991. This release combines thirteen waves of Understanding Society data with harmonised data from all eighteen waves of the BHPS. As multi-topic studies, the purpose of Understanding Society and BHPS is to understand the short- and long-term effects of social and economic change in the UK at the household and individual levels. The study has a strong emphasis on domains of family and social ties, employment, education, financial resources, and health. Understanding Society is an annual survey of each adult member of a nationally representative sample. The same individuals are re-interviewed in each wave approximately 12 months apart. When individuals move they are followed within the UK and anyone joining their households is also interviewed as long as they are living with them. The study has five sample components: the general population sample; a boost sample of ethnic minority group members; an immigrant and ethnic minority boost sample (from wave 6); participants from the BHPS; and the Innovation Panel (which is a separate standalone survey (see SN 6849). The fieldwork period is for 24 months. Data collection uses computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) and web interviews (from wave 7) and includes a telephone mop-up. From March 2020 (the end of wave 10 and 2nd year of wave 11), due to the coronavirus pandemic, face-to-face interviews were suspended, and the survey has been conducted by web and telephone only but otherwise has continued as before. Face-to-face interviewing was resumed from April 2022. One person completes the household questionnaire. Each person aged 16 or older participates in the individual adult interview and self-completed questionnaire. Youths aged 10 to 15 are asked to respond to a self-completion questionnaire. For the general and BHPS samples biomarker, genetic and epigenetic data are also available. The biomarker data, and summary genetics and epigenetic scores, are available via UKDS (see SN 7251); detailed genetics and epigenetics data are available by application (see below). In 2020 an additional frequent web survey was separately issued to sample members to capture data on the rapid changes in people’s lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic (see SN 8644). Further information may be found on the Understanding Society main stage webpage and links to publications based on the study can be found on the Understanding Society Latest Research webpage. End User Licence, Special Licence and Secure Access versions:There are two versions of the main Understanding Society data. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement, and the other is a Special Licence (SL) version. The SL version contains additional month of birth variables, more detailed country and occupation coding for a number of variables and various income variables have not been top-coded (see the documentation available with the SL version or the Understanding Society website for more detail on these and other differences). Users are advised to first obtain the standard EUL version of the data to see if they are sufficient for their research requirements. The SL data have more restrictive access conditions; prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version. The SL versions of the main Understanding Society and Innovation Panel studies may be found under SNs 6931 and 7083 respectively. Low- and Medium-level geographical identifiers are also available subject to SL access conditions; see SNs 6666, 6668-6675, 7453-4, 7629-30, 7245, 7248-9 and 9169-9170 (mainstage study) and 6908-6916, 7339, 7637-41, 9157 and 9159 (Innovation Panel). Schools data are available subject to SL access conditions in SN 7182. Higher Education establishments for Wave 5 are available subject to SL access conditions in SN 8578. Interviewer Characteristics data, also subject to SL access conditions is available in SN 8579. In addition, a fine detail geographic dataset (SN 6676) is available under more restrictive Secure Access conditions that contains British National Grid postcode grid references (at 1m resolution) for the unit postcode of each household surveyed, derived from the ONS National Statistics Postcode Directory (NSPD). For details on how to make an application for Secure Access dataset, please see the SN 6676 catalogue record. How to access genetic and/or bio-medical sample data : Information on how to access genetics and epigenetics data, directly from the study team, is available on the website: https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/health-assessment/accessing-data/genetics-application. Latest edition information For the 18th edition (November 2023), Wave 13 data and documentation have been added. Other minor changes and corrections have also been made to Waves 1-12. Please refer to the revisions document for full details. Suitable data analysis software These data are provided by the depositor in Stata format. Users are strongly advised to analyse them in Stata. Transfer to other formats may result in unforeseen issues. Stata SE or MP software is needed to analyse the larger files, which contain over 2,047 variables.

Understanding Society is a large representative household panel study for the UK. The Study follows the same 40,000 households over time, beginning in 2009 and providing a detailed picture of how people’s lives are changing. One of the many innovative features of Understanding Society is that a great deal of information about neighbourhoods can be used alongside the individual and household-level information collected in the Study, making it a useful study for neighbourhood effects analyses. In a recent paper (Knies, 2017) we explored four Understanding Society data products, based on four different types of rural-urban/neighbourhood classifications, to throw light on how much heterogeneity in neighbourhood contexts is captured in the first waves of Understanding Society, including change in neighbourhood contexts. This Online Supplement presents additional tables to Knies (2017). Data was used from the first five waves of Understanding Society (University of Essex. Institute for Social and Economic Research, 2015a), and linked it with information from four related data products that provide qualitative information about the types of neighbourhood people live in. The four neighbourhood classifications used are: • 2001 Census Rural-urban classification • 2001 Census Output Area Classification (OAC) • ACORN 2013 classification • MOSAIC UK 2009 classification

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.Understanding Society (the 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 Kantar Public and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991. This dataset contains Acorn geodemographic segmentation codes for each household in every wave of Understanding Society and harmonised BHPS, together with a household identification number (hidp) allowing it to be linked to the main Understanding Society data files. The dataset is produced by matching the Acorn segmentation against every Understanding Society household at the postcode level. The Acorn segmentation system itself is developed and maintained by CACI Ltd and is designed to identify characteristics of each postcode according to a hierarchical structure of 7 categories, 22 groups and 64 types. For details on the Acorn segmentation structure and how it is produced please refer to the documentation and the CACI website. These data have more restrictive access conditions than those available under the standard End User Licence (see 'Access' section). Latest Edition Information For the 13th edition (November 2023), data for Wave 13 have been added.

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 Spending Study 1 was conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex, in collaboration with Kantar Worldpanel. The purpose of the study was to test ways in which mobile technologies could improve the measurement of expenditure data in Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study. Adult sample members of the Understanding Society Innovation Panel (see SN 6849) were invited to download a spending app on their smartphone or tablet and to use that to scan shopping receipts or report spending directly in the app for one month. At the end of each week, sample members were invited to an end-of-week survey; at the end of the five weeks, they were invited to an end-of-project survey. Data were collected between October 2016 and January 2017.

Further information about the Spending Study, including links to publications and documents, can be found on the ISER https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/research/projects/understanding-household-finance-through-better-measurement">Understanding household finance through better measurement webpage.

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 Wave 2 Nurse Health Assessment, conducted in 2010-2012, was completed with 15,646 adult participants from the General Population component living in England, Scotland or Wales who completed a full Wave 2 interview. In addition, blood samples were obtained from 9,920 individuals. The Wave 3 Nurse Health Assessment, conducted in 2011-2012, was completed with the BHPS sample component. Assessments were conducted with 5,053 individuals and blood samples were obtained from 3,366 individuals. The Nurse Health Assessment, which included physical measures, such as height, weight, lung function, blood pressure and grip strength, as well as a range of blood samples, followed the main wave interview by approximately five months. As well as a range of blood analytes, two proteomic panels have been produced and a number of epigenetic ageing variables have been derived. The physical measures, biomarkers and questionnaire data from the Nurse Health Assessment interview are available from the UK Data Service. Genetics and epigenetic information is also available, with and without survey data; see the Understanding Society website for more information - https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/topic-page/biomarkers-genetics-and-epigenetics.

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

The Special Licence version of the Understanding Society: Nurse Health Assessment study is held under SN 7587. It contains variables covering prescription medication codes and associated usage questions, together with polygenic score variables, derived from analysis of the genetics data, that are not included in the standard End User Licence version (SN 7251). Users are advised to check that study first to see if the data are suitable for their needs before making an application for the Special Licence version. See documentation for further details.

Latest edition information

For the 6th edition (June 2025) five new biomarker variables have been deposited. There is also a new ageing (clock) variable and others have been renamed. Various other changes have also been made across multiple data files. The User Guides have also been updated. For full details please refer to the document '7251_revisions_june_2025.pdf' and to the User Guides.

Suitable data analysis software

These data are provided by the depositor in Stata format. Users are strongly advised to analyse them in Stata. Transfer to other formats may result in unforeseen issues. Stata SE or MP software is needed to analyse the larger files, which contain over 2,047 variables.

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.Understanding Society (the 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 Kantar Public and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991. The Harmonized Histories is an international comparative dataset, created through harmonising data from existing surveys into one common format. The aim of Harmonized Histories is to facilitate cross-national research on topics related to transition to adulthood, family formation, and childbearing. The dataset focuses on fertility and partnership histories but also captures information on socio-economic status, place of residence and information on the childhood family. You can find more information about Harmonized Histories and access to the datasets from other countries via the Generations & Gender Programme (GGP) website. Two datasets are provided. The first includes all people aged 16 or over who participated in the full interview of Wave 1 of the Understanding Society project and the data as is collected at Wave 1. The second dataset follows the people who are in the first dataset prospectively. Thus, it includes all the retrospective information from the first dataset and has been updated when things changed, for instance the partners got married or had children. For more information please refer to the User Guide. Harmonized Histories uses Understanding Society for data on the UK. As Harmonized Histories is a cross-national project, please note that the variable naming conventions and terminology used in this dataset are different to the standard Understanding Society naming and terms. Further information may also be found on the Understanding Society mainstage webpage and links to publications based on the study can be found on the Understanding Society Latest Research webpage. Understanding Society acknowledges Professor Brienna Perelli-Harris, Dr Niels Blom and Karolin Kubisch for making this dataset available to Understanding Society. Suitable data analysis software These data are provided by the depositor in Stata format. Users are strongly advised to analyse them in Stata, although SPSS and tab-delimited text versions are also available if needed. Users should note that transfer to other software formats may result in unforeseen issues.