Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) ran for 18 waves, from 1991-2009, and was conducted by the ESRC UK Longitudinal Studies Centre (ULSC), together with the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex. The ULSC, established in 1999, was a continuation of the research resource component of the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change (MISOC), established in 1989. In addition to running panel studies, ISER undertakes a programme of research based on panel data, using Understanding Society, the BHPS and other national panels to monitor and measure social change. The main objective of the BHPS was to further understanding of social and economic change at the individual and household level in Britain, and to identify, model and forecast such changes and their causes and consequences in relation to a range of socio-economic variables. It was designed as an annual survey of each adult member (aged 16 years and over) of a nationally representative sample of more than 5,000 households, making a total of approximately 10,000 individual interviews. The same individuals were re-interviewed in successive waves and, if they left their original households, all adult members of their new households were also interviewed. Children were interviewed once they reach the age of 16; there was also a special survey of household members aged 11-15 included in the BHPS from Wave 4 onwards (the British Youth Panel, or BYP). From Wave 9, two additional samples were added to the BHPS in Scotland and Wales, and at Wave 11 an additional sample from Northern Ireland (which formed the Northern Ireland Household Panel Study or NIHPS), was added to increase the sample to cover the whole of the United Kingdom. For Waves 7-11, the BHPS also provided data for the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). For details of sampling, methodology and changes to the survey over time, see Volume A of the documentation (Introduction, Technical Report and Appendices). Further information may be found on the ISER BHPS webpages. A less detailed version of the dataset is available under End User Licence (see SN 5151). Users should check the EUL version first to see whether it contains the data they need, before making an application for the Special Licence version. Information on the variables included in the Special Licence version may be found in the documentation - see the file '8380_eul_vs_sl_variable_differences'.

Main Topics:

The questionnaire package consists of the following elements:a household coversheeta household composition form comprising a complete listing of all household members, together with some brief summary data of their gender, date of birth, marital and employment status and their relationship to the household reference persona short household questionnaire containing questions about the accommodation and tenure and some household-level measures of consumption an individual schedule asked of every adult member of the household (aged 16 or over), covering: neighbourhood; individual demographics; residential mobility; health and caring; current employment and earnings; employment changes over the past year; lifetime childbirth, marital and relationship history (Wave 2 for the main sample, supplemented for new entrants from Wave 8 onwards); employment status history (Wave 2 only); values and opinions; household finances and organisationa self-completion questionnaire including subjective or attitudinal questions particularly vulnerable to the influence of other people's presence during completion, or potentially sensitive questions requiring additional privacy. It also contains attitudinal items and questions on social supporta proxy schedule: the questionnaire is a much shortened version of the individual questionnaire, collecting some demographic, health, and employment details, as well as a summary income measurea telephone questionnaire, developed from the proxy schedule, for use when all other efforts to achieve a face-to-face interview have failedfrom Wave 4 to Wave 11, the youth questionnaire (aged 11-16 years) was administered using a 'Walkman' personal cassette tape player and a blank self-completion answer grid, as some of the questions cover sensitive issues. From Wave 12 onwards, a normal self-completion script has been used

Multi-stage stratified random sample

Face-to-face interview

Telephone interview

Self-completion