What do we ask our participants about?
Every year our participants complete their questionnaire either via a face-to-face interview or by using an online questionnaire. A core set of questions are asked every year and others are asked at less frequent intervals. You can find full information about the questions asked each year in the Long-Term Content Plan.
All adults complete an interview. For children in the household who are up to age 10 the parents or care-givers answer questions about them. Children aged 10 to 15 have their own paper-based questionnaire with questions appropriate to their age group and when they turn 16 they become eligible for the full adult interview.
We ask our adult participants about:
Family life
- Partnerships and children
- Relationships with other household members
- Gender identity, sex at birth, ethnicity, religion and language
- Important life events
- Their own, parents’ and grandparents’ countries of birth and citizenship
- Attitudes to gender roles at home and at work
- Caring for people inside and outside the household
- Domestic labour
- Parenting styles
- Childcare
- Migration intentions
- Fertility intentions
- Housing
- Home energy use
- Car ownership and transport use
- Use of technology and online activity
Income, wealth and expenditure
- Household finances
- Income, wealth, savings and assets
- Pensions and pension planning
- Benefits
- Financial strain and material deprivation
- Food poverty
Education and employment
- Education and qualifications
- Jobs, self-employment, retirement
- Professional development and training
- Job satisfaction
- Educational and employment aspirations
- Returning to work after maternity/paternity leave
- Second jobs and the gig economy
- Commuting
Civic participation
- Political engagement and voting behaviour
- Volunteering
- The local neighbourhood
- How often they go to the cinema, theatre, museums
- Environmental attitudes and behaviours
- News and media use
Health, wellbeing and health behaviours
- Physical health and health conditions
- Health service use
- Long-term disability and illness
- Whether they smoke and how often
- Whether they drink and how often
- Mental health
- Life satisfaction
- Loneliness
- Sleep patterns
- Friendships
- Leisure activities
- Experience of racial harrassment
- We also collected blood samples for objective health measure and genetic information in Wave 2 of the Study
For young people aged 10-15 we ask them about
- Their family life
- School and homework
- Friendships and social networks
- Self esteem and happiness
- Their health
- Risky behaviours such as drinking, smoking and drug taking
- The local neighbourhood and fear of crime
- Using technology and social media
- Their political and social attitudes
- Environmental behaviour and attitudes
- Savings behaviour and pocket money
- Future intentions
You can find the questionnaires we use for each Wave of the Study here.