DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-9472-1
title: Understanding Society: Calendar Year Dataset, 2023: Special Licence Access
title: Understanding Society, Waves 1-, 2008- : Safeguarded/Special Licence
title: UKHLS

description: &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/span&gt; (the UK Household Longitudinal Study), which began in 2009, is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex, and the survey research organisations Verian Group (formerly Kantar Public) and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991. 
&lt;p&gt;The &lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;Understanding Society: Calendar Year Dataset, 2023&lt;/span&gt;, is designed for analysts to conduct cross-sectional analysis for the 2023 calendar year. The Calendar Year datasets combine data collected in a specific year from across multiple waves and these are released as separate calendar year studies, with appropriate analysis weights, starting with the 2020 Calendar Year dataset. Each subsequent year, an additional yearly study is released.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The Calendar Year data is designed to enable timely cross-sectional analysis of individuals and households in a calendar year. Such analysis can however, only involve variables that are collected in every wave (excluding rotating content which is only collected in some of the waves). Due to overlapping fieldwork the data files combine data collected in the three waves that make up a calendar year. Analysis cannot be restricted to data collected in one wave during a calendar year, as this subset will not be representative of the population. Further details and guidance on this study can be found in the document '9472_main_survey_calendar_year_user_guide_2023'.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;These calendar year datasets should be used for cross-sectional analysis only. For those interested in longitudinal analyses using Understanding Society please access the main survey datasets:  &lt;a href="https://datacatalogue.ukdataservice.ac.uk/studies/study/6614#details" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;Safeguarded (End User Licence)&lt;/a&gt; version or &lt;a href="https://datacatalogue.ukdataservice.ac.uk/studies/study/6931#details" target="_blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;Safeguarded/Special Licence&lt;/a&gt; version.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Understanding Society: the UK Household Longitudinal Study, started in 2009 with a general population sample (GPS) of UK residents living in private households of around 26,000 households and an ethnic minority boost sample (EMBS) of 4,000 households. All members of these responding households and their descendants became part of the core sample who were eligible to be interviewed every year. Anyone who joined these households after this initial wave, were also interviewed as long as they lived with these core sample members to provide the household context. At each annual interview, some basic demographic information was collected about every household member, information about the household is collected from one household member, all 16+ year old household members are eligible for adult interviews, 10-15 year old household members are eligible for youth interviews, and some information is collected about 0-9 year olds from their parents or guardians. Since 1991 until 2008/9 a similar survey, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), was fielded. The surviving members of this survey sample were incorporated into Understanding Society in 2010. In 2015, an immigrant and ethnic minority boost sample (IEMBS) of around 2,500 households was added. In 2022 a GPS boost sample (GPS2) of around 5,700 households was added. To know more about the sample design, following rules, interview modes, incentives, consent, questionnaire content please see the study overview and user guide.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Co-funders&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In addition to the Economic and Social Research Council, co-funders for the study included the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department for Education, the Department for Transport, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the Department for Community and Local Government, the Department of Health, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Department of Environment and Rural Affairs, and the Food Standards Agency.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;End User Licence and Special Licence versions:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;There are two versions of the Calendar Year 2023 data. One is available under the standard End User Licence (EUL) agreement, and the other is a Special Licence (SL) version. The SL version contains month and year of birth variables instead of just age, more detailed country and occupation coding for a number of variables and various income variables have not been top-coded (see document '9472_eul_vs_sl_variable_differences' for more details). Users are advised to first obtain the standard EUL version of the data to see if they are sufficient for their research requirements. The SL data have more restrictive access conditions; prospective users of the SL version will need to complete an extra application form and demonstrate to the data owners exactly why they need access to the additional variables in order to get permission to use that version. The main longitudinal versions of the Understanding Society study may be found under SNs 6614 (Safeguarded (EUL)) and 6931 (Safeguarded/SL).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Low- and Medium-level geographical identifiers produced for the mainstage longitudinal dataset can be used with this Calendar Year 2023 dataset, subject to SL access conditions. See the User Guide for further details.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Suitable data analysis software&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;These data are provided by the depositor in Stata format. Users are strongly advised to analyse them in Stata. Transfer to other formats may result in unforeseen issues. Stata SE or MP software is needed to analyse the larger files, which contain about 1,800 variables.&lt;/p&gt;