DOI: 10.5255/ukda-sn-8831-2
title: English Longitudinal Study of Ageing: Wave 3, 2007: Harmonized Life History: Special Licence Access
title: English Longitudinal Study of Ageing: Special Licence Access
title: ELSA; Gateway Harmonized ELSA Life History

description: &lt;div&gt;The &lt;em&gt;English Longitudinal Study of Ageing&lt;/em&gt; (ELSA) study is a longitudinal survey of ageing and quality of life among older people that explores the dynamic relationships between health and functioning, social networks and participation, and economic position as people plan for, move into and progress beyond retirement. The main objectives of ELSA are to:&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;construct waves of accessible and well-documented panel data;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;provide these data in a convenient and timely fashion to the scientific and policy research community;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;describe health trajectories, disability and healthy life expectancy in a representative sample of the English population aged 50 and over;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;examine the relationship between economic position and health;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;nvestigate the determinants of economic position in older age;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;describe the timing of retirement and post-retirement labour market activity; and&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;understand the relationships between social support, household structure and the transfer of assets.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Further information may be found on the the &lt;a href="https://www.elsa-project.ac.uk/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;ELSA project&lt;/a&gt; website or the &lt;a href="https://natcen.ac.uk/participant-contents/elsa-50-health-and-life" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"&gt;Natcen Social Research: ELSA&lt;/a&gt; web pages.&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Health conditions research with ELSA - June 2021&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The ELSA Data team have found some issues with historical data measuring health conditions. If you are intending to do any analysis looking at the following health conditions, then please contact the ELSA Data team at NatCen on &lt;a href="mailto:elsadata@natcen.ac.uk"&gt;elsadata@natcen.ac.uk&lt;/a&gt; for advice on how you should approach your analysis. The affected conditions are: eye conditions (glaucoma; diabetic eye disease; macular degeneration; cataract), CVD conditions (high blood pressure; angina; heart attack; Congestive Heart Failure; heart murmur; abnormal heart rhythm; diabetes; stroke; high cholesterol; other heart trouble) and chronic health conditions (chronic lung disease; asthma; arthritis; osteoporosis; cancer; Parkinson's Disease; emotional, nervous or psychiatric problems; Alzheimer's Disease; dementia; malignant blood disorder; multiple sclerosis or motor neurone disease).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Special Licence Data&lt;/strong&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Special Licence Access versions of ELSA have more restrictive access conditions than versions available under the standard End User Licence (see 'Access' section below). Users are advised to obtain the latest edition of SN 5050 (the End User Licence version) before making an application for Special Licence data, to see whether that is suitable for their needs. A separate application must be made for each Special Licence study. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Special Licence Access versions of ELSA include:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Primary data from Wave 8 onwards (SN 8346) includes all the variables in the EUL primary dataset (SN 5050) as well as year and month of birth, consolidated ethnicity and country of birth, marital status, and more detailed medical history variables.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Wave 8 Pension Age Data (SN 8375) includes all the variables in the EUL pension age data (SN 5050) as well as year and age reached state pension age variables.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Wave 8 Sexual Self-Completion Data (SN 8376) includes sensitive variables from the sexual self-completion questionnaire.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Wave 3 (2007) Harmonized Life History (SN 8831) includes retrospective information on previous histories, specifically, detailed data on previous partnership, children, residential, health, and work histories.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Detailed geographical identifier files for Waves 1-10 which are grouped by identifier held under SN 8430 (Local Authority Type Pre-2009 Boundaries), SN 8441 (Local Authority Type Post-2009 Boundaries), SN 8431 (Quintile Index of Multiple Deprivation Score), SN 8432 (Quintile Population Density for Postcode Sectors), SN 8433 (Census 2001 Rural-Urban Indicators), SN 8437 (Census 2011 Rural-Urban Indicators).&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Where boundary changes have occurred, the geographic identifier has been split into two separate studies to reduce the risk of disclosure. Users are also only allowed one version of each identifier:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;either SN 8430 (Local Authority Type Pre-2009 Boundaries) or SN 8441(Local Authority Type Post-2009 Boundaries)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;either SN 8433 (Census 2001 Rural-Urban Indicators) or SN 8437 (Census 2011 Rural-Urban Indicators)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;p&gt;ELSA Wave 6 and Wave 8 Self-Completion Questionnaires included an open-ended question where respondents could add any other comments they may wish to note down. These responses have been transcribed and anonymised. Researchers can request access to these transcribed responses for research purposes by contacting the ELSA Data Team at NatCen.&lt;/p&gt; 
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-style: italic;"&gt;ELSA Wave 3 Harmonized Life History data: Special Licence Access&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In addition to the main interview, ELSA also conducted a life history interview in its third wave. The ELSA Life History interview includes retrospective information on previous histories, specifically, detailed data on previous partnerships, children, residential, health, and work histories. The data collection of ELSA Wave 3 Life History interview took place between March and October 2007.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In order to make the ELSA Life History survey more accessible to researchers and to facilitate such comparisons, the University of Southern California (USC) &lt;a href="https://g2aging.org/home" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; color: rgb(35, 82, 124); text-decoration-line: underline;"&gt;Gateway to Global Aging&lt;/a&gt; Data team has created the the Harmonized ELSA Life History created as a user-friendly version of a subset of the ELSA Wave 3 Life History survey. The Gateway Harmonized ELSA Life History includes variables with a similar data structure and naming conventions to other Harmonized Life History variables.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;November 2025 Update&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;For the second edition (November 2025), version A.3 of the Gateway Harmonized ELSA Life History was deposited. This version incorporates the latest released version of ELSA data. The new file contains 7,855 observations. It is a Respondent-level file so each row represents a unique Respondent. New variables have been added, and adjustments and corrections made. For a full list of these please see the accompanying documentation (p.4).&lt;/p&gt;