UK survey data available via the UK Data Service

Sarah King-Hele

Research Associate,

User Support and Training

ESRC Research Methods Festival

St Catherine’s College, Oxford

9 July 2014

Presentation

• Survey microdata

• UK survey and longitudinal studies

• Nesstar: online analysis of survey data

• Why use secondary survey data?

• Finding data and documentation

Survey microdata

UK surveys and longitudinal studies

UK surveys

• often commissioned by government and conducted by

ONS or NatCen

• data about individuals or households (anonymised)

• large sample sizes

• nationally-representative

• many are run every year

• repeated cross-sectional (new sample each time the

survey is run)

Examples of UK surveys

Many topics including:

• health: Health Survey for England

• work: Labour Force Survey

• crime: Crime Survey for England and Wales

• social attitudes: British Social Attitudes

• family expenditure

• living costs

• housing

Example: economic inactivity by reason

Graph: Labour Market Statistics, June 2014, ONS

Example: trends in domestic burglary, 1981-2011/12

Figure 8 from ‘Crime in England and Wales Quarterly First Release, March 2012’ www.ons.gov.uk

(thousands)

Data: Crime Survey for England and Wales and British Crime Survey

Longitudinal studies

Similar to UK surveys• individual level data• large samples, nationally-

representative• surveys are repeated, often

annually

BUT• they follow the same individuals over time• new respondents are added regularly to keep numbers

up

Examples of longitudinal studies

British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society• cover different aspects of peoples lives: education, employment,

social ties, family life and health

• BHPS started in 1991 and has 18 waves of data collection

• Understanding Society started in 2009

• BHPS sample included in Understanding Society from wave 2

Other longitudinal studies• English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

• Families and Children Study

• Growing Up in Scotland

• Longitudinal Study of Young People in England

Example: perceived discrimination for being turned down for a job by ethnicity

Source: Understanding Society: Findings 2012

Example: reasons for moving home

Source: Understanding Society: Findings 2012

Longitudinal studies: Cohort studies

• National Child Development Study (1958) • 1970 British Cohort Study• Millennium Cohort Study

• different decades – can examine generational change

• topics: health/medical focus • social and economic circumstances

Nesstar: online analysis of survey data

• browse detailed information (metadata) and data online

• do simple data analysis and visualisation on microdata

• download a subset of data in one of a number of formats (e.g. SPSS, Stata)

Example: one way frequencyPolitical affiliation (data from BSA)

Example: graphAge started smoking (data from GHS)

Example: Cross-tab Main cause of crime (data from CSEW)

Why use secondary survey data?

• cost effective

• saves time

• high quality

• nationally representative

• many topics

• allows geographical and historical comparisons

• help and support are available

Help

Documentation

• all survey documentation is freely available on the website – questionnaires, user guides, technical reports, derived variables

• documentation tells you about the data• what questions were asked• who were asked the questions• how the survey was conducted• what was done with the raw data to turn it into the final data

You must look at the documentation to understand the data

Finding data and documentation

• ukdataservice.ac.uk

How to search for data?

discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk

Variable and question search

discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/variables

Questions

Sarah King-Hele

Sarah.king-hele@manchester.ac.uk

ukdataservice.ac.uk/help/

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