The latest release of data from Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, is now available for researchers to download and analyse. Capturing life in the UK in the 21st century, Understanding Society is the largest longitudinal household panel study of its kind and provides vital evidence on life changes and stability.
The development of the Wave 15 questionnaire focused on two themes: family and environment. After an open consultation with environment data users, our content in this module changed with the discontinuation of the environmental attitudes module and the introduction of a new module on environmental identity. The family content was revised to better reflect different family experiences. Content was included to more accurately capture information on children living with a parent or carer not in the Understanding Society household and to allow participants to tell us about partners that they live apart from.
New content in Wave 15
- Current pregnancies
- Guardians
- Environmental identity
In this wave the annual event history module was changed to be asked in six separate modules (health, partnerships, residential, fertility, education, and employment). These new modules contain the same information as was in the event history module, but should now be easier for researchers to use.
Find Wave 15 at the UK Data Service: SN 6614
Rotating content in Wave 15
In each wave of the survey, rotating content is included, alongside the questions that are asked in each wave. In Wave 15 rotating content was included on:
- Fertility intentions
- Parents and children, non-resident children, family networks, and child maintenance
- Broad discrimination
- Domestic labour
- Partner relationships and cohabitation
- Transport use
- Charitable giving
- Loneliness
- Political engagement, political efficacy, socio-political values
- Attitudes towards immigration
Questions were also included on the UK General Election and devolved elections in Northern Ireland.
Youth questionnaire content
Young people aged 10-15 have their own survey. In Wave 15 our young participants were asked questions on:
- Online social networks
- Family meals, family support, family supervision, and family talking/arguing
- Friendship networks and caring
- Bullying at home and at school
- Educational aspirations
- School homework, truancy and misbehaviour
- Disabilities, nutrition, obesity, exercise
- Smoking and drinking alcohol
- Environmental behaviour
- Pocket money and wages, working
- Political attitudes
You can find full information about Wave 15 in the Main Survey User Guide. More details about the new content in Wave 15 can also be found in this blog post from our Associate Director of Outreach, Professor Alita Nandi: Understanding Society Wave 15 – what can data users expect?