Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Scottish Household Survey (SHS) is a continuous survey based on a sample of the general population in private residences in Scotland. It is financed by the Scottish Government (previously the Scottish Executive). The survey started in 1999 and up to 2011 followed a fairly consistent survey design. From 2012 onwards, the survey was substantially redesigned to include elements of the Scottish House Condition Survey (SHCS) (also available from the UK Data Service), including the physical survey. The SHS is run through a consortium led by Ipsos MORI. The survey is designed to provide reliable and up-to-date information on the composition, characteristics, attitudes and behaviour of private households and individuals, both nationally and at a sub-national level and to examine the physical condition of Scotland's homes. It covers a wide range of topics to allow links to be made between different policy areas.Further information about the survey series, and links to publications, can be found on the Scottish Government's Scottish Household Survey webpages.COVID-19 restrictionsDue to COVID-19 restrictions, the SHS was conducted by telephone or via MS Teams in 2020 and 2021 (SNs 9186 and 9187). Face-to-face interviewing resumed for SHS 2022 (SN 9294) when restrictions had been lifted.
Scottish Household Survey Lite The SHS Lite dataset is a simplified version of the full Scottish Household Survey. To stimulate the use of SHS data, particularly amongst local authorities, voluntary organisations and academia, the Scottish Executive decided to commission a simplified data file, which would allow users to undertake most forms of analysis using a substantially smaller data file. The resulting dataset has had 1,700 variables removed. The full SHS dataset is both larger and more complex, containing around 30,000 cases for each two-year sweep of the survey and approximately 2,000 variables. The full 2003-2004 dataset is held at the UK Data Archive (UKDA) under SN 5020. The differences between the full SHS and the Lite dataset are that the number of variables has been reduced from 2,556 to 798, complex data loops have been removed and the original variables have been summarised in new variables. The variables have been organised into ‘sets’ of related variables. These sets can be used to further simplify accessing variables through SPSS dialog boxes. Some aspects of the data have not changed. For example, the number of cases remains over 30,000. With fewer variables however, running analysis will be faster on most computers. The structure of the data continues to include questions that relate to both sections (household and random adult) of the questionnaire. The data still need to be weighted before the results can be considered representative of the household or adult populations. The variable names are still linked to the Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) script used to collect the data. The questionnaire will remain an important reference source for identifying and understanding the variables in the data. The documentation for the SHS Lite dataset includes a Microsoft Access variable database, and an index of variable names. As it includes search functionality, this is available for download with the SHS Lite dataset, rather than via the 'Online Documentation' table below.
Main Topics:
Main survey: The main survey questionnaire is in two parts. Householders or their spouses/partners complete Part 1 of the interview. Once the composition of the household has been established, one of the adults in the household is randomly selected to complete Part 2. In all households with a single adult the same person completes both parts, but as the number of adults in the household increases, the probability of the random adult being the same as the household respondent declines. The household section of the interview deals with topics such as household composition, housing and tenure, health, the vehicles available to the household, the occupation and industry of the highest income householder, household income and housing costs. The 'random adult' section deals with individuals' housing change, tenure change, neighbourhood problems, transport and use of public transport, public services, income and employment. Travel diary: In addition to the main questionnaire, the travel diary collects information about personal travel on the day prior to the interview. One randomly chosen adult per household in the sample is selected to complete the travel diary. The 'journey' and 'stage' files compiled from the travel diary provide information on the means of transport used, purposes for which people travel, distances that they cover, start and end times of trips, duration of journeys, car occupancy, council area of the journey start and destination locations, and days of the week that adults travel. The 'home to work' and 'home to school' files provide information on the estimated straight line distance ('as the crow flies') in kilometres from home to work or home to school. For further information, see documentation. Standard measures: The survey uses many of the harmonised questions for government social surveys.
See main SHS for details.
Web-based interview
Telephone interview: Computer-assisted (CATI)
Face-to-face interview: Computer-assisted (CAPI/CAMI)
