British Household Panel SurveyBHPS

02 May 2008

British Household Panel Survey User Group meeting

Friday 2nd May, 2008
Royal Statistical Society, Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX

This meeting provided an opportunity for users of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) to hear about recent developments in the BHPS, as well as future plans.

Recent Developments

At Wave 16 of the BHPS, “dependent interviewing” was used for the first time. This had implications on the way in which the survey was conducted, and has had implications on the way in which the data is structured. With the recent release of Wave 16 data, Noah Uhrig and Nick Buck outlined how the way in which the data is organised has changed and what effect this may have on the way users analyse the BHPS.

From 2007 a new data set has been available from the UK Data Archive. This is the “Consolidated Marital, Cohabitation and Fertility Histories” data. The file contains information from the retrospective life histories and subsequent panel data related to respondents’ partnerships and childbearing. Chiara Pronzato, the Principal Investigator on this project, talked about this new data-set; how it was put together and the way in which it can be analysed.

Future Plans

Wave 18 will be going into the field in September 2008. This will be the last face-to-face contact with the BHPS sample before they become integrated into the UK Household Longitudinal Survey (UKHLS). Nick Buck discussed the integration of the BHPS into the larger UKHLS, the implications this has on the questionnaire and question consistency across time, as well as the timing of interviews through the year and effect on the delivery of data.

Timetable of the day

1. Economic & Social Research Council
2. University of Essex