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, /12 Figure 8 from ‘Crime in England and Wales Quarterly First Release, March 2012’ (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 frequency Political affiliation (data from BSA)

Example: graph Age 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 ukdataservice.ac.uk/help/ Subscribe to the UK Data Service news list at bin/webadmin?A0=UKDATASERVICE bin/webadmin?A0=UKDATASERVICE Follow us on Twitter or Facebook