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 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 (SN 6614), one is a Special Licence (SL) version (this study) 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.

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