General Household Survey, 1971 -

This material is held atUK Data Archive

Reference
- GB 1956 GHS
Dates of Creation
- 1971- [ongoing]
Name of Creator
- Office for National Statistics
Language of Material
- English.
Physical Description
- Electronic data in the range of hundreds of MBs for each year of the survey.
  Most years are available in a number of formats including SPSS, STATA and ASCII tab-delimited. The data can be converted to other formats such as SAS. From 1998 onwards each year usually consists of 3 separate data files (including household and individual level files). Earlier years consist of approximately 30 data files. Data for 1971 are only available as ascii files without accompanying set-up files. Most years are available in a number of formats including SPSS, STATA and ASCII tab-delimited. The data can be converted to other formats such as SAS. From 1998 onwards each year usually consists of 3 separate data files (including household and individual level files). Earlier years consist of approximately 30 data files. Data for 1971 are only available as ascii files without accompanying set-up files. Documentation is primarily supplied in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.

Scope and Content

A household questionnaire is completed by the householder or spouse on an achieved sample of about 9,000 households per year, and an individual questionnaire by all adults aged 16 years and over in the household. Data are collected on housing, employment, education, health, and family information. The GHS has a modular structure and other subjects e.g. elderly, smoking, drinking, contraception, hearing, and childcare are covered periodically, and new topics are introduced from time to time. Details of these are given in the individual UK Data Archive online catalogue records.

Data is supplied at the individual and household level and the lowest geographical identifier is at the level of standard region.

Data is available from 1971 onwards (under UK Data Archive generic study number 33090), excluding the first quarter of 1988 (1st January - 31st March 1988) and the years 1997-1998 and 1999-2000.

Administrative / Biographical History

The General Household Survey (GHS) is a multi-purpose survey conducted by the Social Survey Division of the Office for National Statistics. The survey started in 1971 and has been carried out continuously since then, except for a break in 1997-98 and 1999-2000. The GHS is carried out for a number of government departments providing information for planning and policy purposes and is also used to monitor progress towards achieving targets. The survey is sponsored by ONS and a number of government departments including the Department of Health.

Prior to 1988 the interviewing year was from 1st January - 31st December. In 1988 the interviewing year changed to 1st April - 31st March.

Arrangement

Component studies of data series are held and supplied separately, usually as annual datasets.

Access Information

Available to UK Data Archive registered users.

Acquisition Information

Office for National Statistics

Note

Sources for the information in this record include the UK Data Archive catalogue records.

Record created by Karen Dennison, UK Data Archive.

Other Finding Aids

UK Data Archive web pages:

Conditions Governing Use

Users are required to agree to certain conditions of use, including those governing reproduction and those relating to citation, acknowledgement and disclaimer for publications.

Appraisal Information

All datasets available from the UK Data Archive have been reviewed by an Acquisitions Review Committee.

Accruals

Data will continue to be received on an annual basis for the foreseeable future.

The UK Data Archive releases the General Household Survey data after publication of the report for a given annual survey.

Related Material

Related datasets held at the UK Data Archive are listed in the appropriate UK Data Archive online catalogue records and include a number of teaching datasets.

Bibliography

References and publications by principal investigators and resulting from secondary analysis are listed in the UK Data Archive online catalogue records.