Transcript Living In Scotland: The British Household Panel Survey and

The British Household Panel Survey
and its Scottish Extension
Nick Buck
Institute for Social and Economic Research
University of Essex
ESRC UK Longitudinal Studies Centre
The BHPS and longitudinal research
 BHPS supports a wide range of types of longitudinal research
 Analysis of gross (individual level) change – inflow and outflow
measures (e.g. employment and family status)
 Inherently longitudinal phenomena (eg unstable employment,
poverty persistence).
 Controlling for unobserved characteristics
 Causal inferences from temporal sequence – both short term and
long term
 Relationships between attitudes, expectations, preferences and
behaviour
 Analysis of quasi-experiments – impacts of policy
ESRC UK Longitudinal Studies Centre
What is a Household Panel Study?
• Many types of longitudinal studies (e.g. cohort studies,
individual level panels)
• Household panel studies involve repeated data collection about a
panel of individuals
• They are distinctive in the context of their households, and
usually interview all members of respondent households
• Follow individuals as they move between different households
• Short intervals between surveys, allows collection of
‘continuous’ information
• Use Household panel where household context is important (e.g.
demographics, income dynamics, employment participation)
• Collects information on changing household units
ESRC UK Longitudinal Studies Centre
The development of Household
Panel Studies
• Household Panel Studies have become the leading survey type
for cross-national longitudinal research
• Began with Panel Study of Income Dynamics in USA - analysis
of poverty persistence 1968
• SOEP in Germany/ SEP in Netherlands 1984
• BHPS in GB 1991 - widening agenda
• ECHP 1994 - cross national comparison (also CNEF)
• Understanding of transition countries (Hungary, Bosnia)
• Understanding of differences within nation states: East/West
Germany, Scotland, Wales, NIHPS, NHPS
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British Household Panel Survey
• Annual survey of members of initial sample of 5511
households interviewed in autumn 1991
• Random sample representative of population of Great
Britain (south of Caledonian canal)
• Follow sample members as they move and form new
households
• Sample increased by births, new household members,
• ... reduced by deaths, refusals, moves out of scope
• Low attrition means the BHPS is still representative
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BHPS topics
• BHPS questionnaire consists of core questions repeated
each year and variable components. Core questions cover
the following areas:
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Housing and consumption, neighbourhood characteristics
Household organisation, domestic work
Education and training
Labour market behaviour, current job, and annual job history
Health, limitation of activities, use of health services
Social and political values, social participation and networks
Income: current and annual measures, non-monetary
indicators
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Types of BHPS data
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Initial conditions / life histories
Repeated annual measures
Continuous history information (work, income, family)
Irregular topics, collected from variable components (e.g.
wealth, ageing etc.)
• Permits a range of different statistical methods, including panel
repeated measures models and duration models.
• Data files contain weights for a range of analysis, imputation for
item non-response, and a considerable number of derived
variables.
ESRC UK Longitudinal Studies Centre
Examples of Research Using BHPS
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Poverty and income dynamics / impacts of family change
Welfare in old age and wealth accumulation over the life course
Impacts of class or human capital on life chances
Scarring effects of unemployment and poor quality jobs on later
employment
Impacts of life events on psychological well-being
Choice between marriage and cohabitation
Neighbourhood effects on social exclusion
Sharing of political attitudes within the household
Impacts of parental circumstances on child outcomes
ESRC UK Longitudinal Studies Centre
BHPS Scottish Extension sample
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Extension sample, funded by ESRC, added in 1999
1500 households, added to 500 in original sample
Includes Highlands and Islands
New questions on national identity, attitudes to
government structure
• Tends to follow BHPS variable component pattern (e.g.
Wealth at Wave 2); Wave 3 contains life histories
• Four waves available very shortly,
• Funded up to wave 5; ESRC is currently considering
funding up to Wave 10.
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Rationale for Scottish extension
• Sample sizes large enough for independent analysis of
panel research issues in Scotland
• Comparative analysis - in what ways is Scotland different
from England? Wider impacts of structural differences in
e.g. housing and labour markets
• Understanding impacts of changing governance of UK impacts of diverging policy with Scottish Parliament.
• With ECHP/other comparative data - understanding of
Scotland within European Union.
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Early findings from the Scottish sample
• Collection of papers, originally presented at a conference
organised by Scotecon, published later this year by Policy
Press– e.g:
• Living arrangements of young people
• National identity and voting behaviour
• Gender wage gap
• Health and deprivation
• Pay mobility
• Teenage family life
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Future prospects
• Scottish BHPS is still a relatively short panel, but soon
able to exploit some of the advantages of longer panels:
– Period and cohort differences (has devolution made a
difference?)
– Analysis of longer spells and sequences of spells
(poverty exit or poverty churning)
– Life course changes and impacts of earlier life events,
– Intergenerational influences
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Future data plans: variable
components
• Wave 14 (2004) National identity, views of UK
governance, additional health measures (SF36), and
measures of work attitudes and work stress.
• Wave 15 (2005) Wealth, Assets and Debts – second
measurement in Scotland
• Wave 16 (2006) Ageing, retirement, health, and quality of
life
• Wave 17 (2007) Children and parenting, non-resident
parents, aspirations of young people
• Wave 18 (2008) Neighbourhood, expectations of
relationships and marriage in the future
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Other issues for the future
• Sample size, re-sampling
• Representation of migrants to the population
• Linkage to contextual data – neighbourhoods,
organisations (e.g. school, workplace) – how do we dal
with disclosure risks?
• Linkage to individual administrative data
• New agendas for data collection e.g. health measurement,
crime and victimisation
• New methods of data collection (e.g. web-surveys)
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More information
• Documentation, including lists of publications based on
BHPS available at http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/ulsc/bhps
• Also provides information on BHPS user group
• Data from Economic and Social Data Service (Data
Archive) http://www.esds.ac.uk
• One day BHPS training course in Edinburgh on 29 March
(via http://datalib.ed.ac.uk)
ESRC UK Longitudinal Studies Centre