Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The purpose of this study, compiled by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), was to provide a consistent description of household incomes and characteristics between 1961-1991, enabling a comprehensive analysis of the trend in poverty, inequality and real living standards in the UK over the last thirty years. The study was extended in 2020 to include data from 1992 and 1993. The Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data are compiled from the Family Expenditure Survey (FES) (held at the UKDA under GN 33057), in this case from 1961-1993. Households Below Average Income data, with coverage from 1994-1995 onwards, are held at the UKDA under GN 33383. Data and documentation from the HBAI series is also available from the Department for Work and Pensions' Households Below Average Income web page.For the second edition (February 2020), data files for 1992 and 1993 were added. The original data and documentation were also updated to the latest file formats.

Main Topics:

Topics covered include: household income, before and after housing costs, and broken down into sources of income the characteristics of the household, including region and tenure typethe characteristics of the separate benefit units within the household, including benefit unit type, economic status, age of head of benefit unit, number of children in benefit unitgrossing factors to weight the data to be representative of the UK populationdeflators to convert incomes to January prices of each year Measurement scales: McClements Equivalence Scales (see McClements [1977] as referenced in the documentation) are provided to enable all incomes data to be converted to the equivalent income of a household containing just a childless couple.

Synthesis of FES data is used for HBAI: see documentation for details.

Compilation/Synthesis