The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) is a household panel or longitudinal survey of British households which started in 1991 and continued until 2008. It started with a Great Britain sample of around 5500 households. In 1999, Scottish & Welsh boost samples of around 1500 households were added and then in 2001 the Northern Ireland boost sample was added.
The surviving sample were invited to participate in Understanding Society and those who agreed were interviewed as part of Wave 2 of Understanding Society. A large number of BHPS questions were included in Understanding Society allowing research into the lives of UK residents over three decades. But some questions were added to capture aspects of people’s lives that have become more salient over the years and to measure some aspects of their lives not asked about in the BHPS. Unlike Understanding Society the BHPS did not oversample ethnic minorities and immigrants. The data from the two surveys was harmonised and this harmonised version of the BHPS is now available to download along with Understanding Society. To know more about the harmonisation, similarities and differences please read the BHPS – Harmonised User Guide.
