DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-6027-2
title: British Household Panel Survey, Waves 1-18, 1991-2009: Special Licence Access, Local Authority Districts
title: British Household Panel Survey, 1991-2009: Special Licence Access, Medium-Level Geographical Identifiers
title: BHPS

description: The main &lt;i&gt;British Household Panel Survey&lt;/i&gt; (BHPS) is conducted by the &lt;a href="http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/ulsc/" title="ESRC UK Longitudinal Studies Centre"&gt;ESRC UK Longitudinal Studies Centre&lt;/a&gt; (ULSC), together with the &lt;a href="http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/" title="Institute for Social and Economic Research"&gt;Institute for Social and Economic Research&lt;/a&gt; (ISER) at the University of Essex. In addition to conducting the BHPS and disseminating it to the research community, ISER undertakes a programme of research based on panel data, using the BHPS and other national panels to monitor and measure social change. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; The main objective of the BHPS is to further understanding of social and economic change at the individual and household level in the UK, and to identify, model and forecast such changes and their causes and consequences in relation to a range of socio-economic variables. It is conducted as a longitudinal study, where each adult member (aged 16 years and over) of a sampled household is interviewed annually. If individuals leave their original household, all adult members of their new households are interviewed. Children are also interviewed. For full details of the BHPS methodology, sampling, changes over time, and a complete set of documentation, see the main BHPS study, held at the UK Data Archive under SN 5151. &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; &lt;b&gt;Understanding Society:&lt;/b&gt;&lt;br&gt; From Wave 19, the BHPS has been subsumed into a new longitudinal study called &lt;i&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/i&gt;, or the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS), conducted by ISER. The BHPS Wave 19 formed part of Understanding Society Wave 2 (January 2010 - March 2011). The BHPS fieldwork period therefore moved from September-April to January-March. This means that the gap between interviews 18 and 19 for the BHPS sample ranges between 16 and 30 months rather than the standard 12 months. From Wave 2, the BHPS sample has been a permanent part of the larger study and interviews are conducted annually again. BHPS sample members have an identifier within the Understanding Society datasets, allowing BHPS users to match BHPS Wave 1-18 data to &lt;i&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/i&gt;. The main Understanding Society study, held under SN 6614 now includes harmonised BHPS data in addition to the main Understanding Society files. Further information is available on the &lt;a href="https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/" title ="Understanding Society"&gt;Understanding Society&lt;/a&gt; web site.&lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; &lt;br&gt; This dataset contains Local Authority District (LAD) geographic variables for each wave of the BHPS and a household identification serial number for file matching to the main BHPS data. This dataset is subject to restrictive access conditions, different to those for the main BHPS: see Information box on the right or Access section below. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;i&gt;LADs:&lt;/i&gt; There are two different releases available for Local Authority Districts (LAD) linked to the British Household Panel Survey. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; * SN 6027 provides the LAD codes as used by official statistics and are therefore linkable. The code is four digit (except for Northern Ireland). Further information - including a full list of codes - may be found in the studies' user guides. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; * SN 6028 gives codes created specifically for the BHPS, where the LADs were aggregated if their population fell below 120,000 in 1991 (for reasons of preventing disclosure). These codes are not linkable to other published statistics. They are still provided to users because until recently they were the only LAD codings available and some users may want to update their analyses using the old codes. Further information - including a full list of codes - may be found in the studies' user guides. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;i&gt;Latest edition&lt;/i&gt;: For the fourth edition (January 2014) revised geographic data files for each wave have been deposited. The documentation has also been updated.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;