The new harmonized BHPS-UKHLS data set

Presenter: Laura Fumagalli, ISER, University of Essex

The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the UK household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) are high quality longitudinal data, providing crucial information on the life of households living in Britain and the UK. The BHPS started in 1991 and was collected annually until 2008. The UKHLS started in 2009 and is still ongoing. The UKHLS can be seen as the continuation of the BHPS, and the two surveys share many similarities in terms of sample design, survey environment, and type of information collected. However, the BHPS and the UKHLS also present a number of differences, which means harmonizing the two datasets, and thus undertaking longitudinal analysis spanning the two surveys, is time consuming and error prone. For these reasons, research using both surveys is still uncommon. To aid the research agenda, ISER has generated a harmonized BHPS-UKHLS dataset, available with wave 7 UKHLS data release. This talk outlines the important aspects of the new data set. Firstly, the talk sets out how variable names, naming conventions, and variable derivation processes of BHPS and UKHLS are harmonized. Second, it presents the dataset documentation, which will enable users to understand similarities and differences between BHPS and UKHLS and within each survey. Finally, the talk gives examples of research topics combining BHPS and UKHLS, and discusses future developments.