To analyse how people’s lives change over time information needs to be collected from our participants at fixed intervals. In Understanding Society each set of annual interviews is referred to as a wave. The fieldwork period for each wave stretches over 24 months, but the time interval between interviews for each household is generally around one year. We manage this fieldwork structure by having overlapping waves, so in any year two waves of the Study are in the field. Sometimes individuals are difficult to contact, or are away during the entire fieldwork period, and these participants are interviewed in the weeks following the end of the fieldwork period for their wave.
Researchers examining change over time will tend to use the waves of Understanding Society to look at longitudinal trends, however, there are occasions when researchers would like to analyse what happens to people in a particular year and how this changes from previous years. Up until now, anyone wishing to do this type of analysis would have to combine the data from the consecutive waves that were collected in the year they wanted to study. To enable cross-sectional analysis for calendar years to be carried out more easily Understanding Society now provides a calendar year dataset. This new release starts with data collected in 2020 and a new dataset will be released for each year going forwards.
About the new dataset
The new 2020 dataset includes the variables that are collected in every wave. Appropriate weights for the dataset are also included. In subsequent years we aim to release these datasets in the December of the following year, so the 2021 dataset will be released in December 2022.
There are two versions of the 2020 calendar year dataset: an End User Licence version, which is suitable for the majority of research, and a Special Licence version, which contains more detailed variants of some variables, non-top-coded income variables and additional derived variables. Both datasets can be downloaded from the UK Data Service.
Download the 2020 calendar year dataset (EUL version)
For more information on the calendar year dataset, please read the user guide that accompanies the release.
EducationEmploymentEthnicity and immigrationFamily and householdsHealth and wellbeingIncome and expenditureMoney and financesPolitics and social attitudesSurvey methodologyTransport and environment
