The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) aims to further understanding of social and economic change at the individual and household level in Britain to identify, model and forecast such changes, their causes and consequences in relation to a range of socio-economic variables.
BHPS follows the members of 5500 households first sampled in 1991, and has interviewed them each year since. Its coverage includes income, labour market behaviour, social and political values, health, education, housing and household organisation. Recently large new samples were introduced in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The BHPS is designed as a research resource for a wide range of social science disciplines and to support interdisciplinary research in many areas. It is regarded as one of the key data sources for understanding the dynamics of British households. The BHPS is carried out by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) - www.iser.essex.ac.uk - incorporating the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change, at the University of Essex.

Users registered with the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) can now analyse, visualise, subset and download selected data from the BHPS via the online Nesstar software tool.


Three BHPS samplers have been added to the Teaching Datasets section of the ESDS Nesstar Catalogue. They have been created in order to provide potential users of this large and complex dataset with a taste of how the BHPS might be used.

The first two BHPS teaching datasets contain wave one respondents, and follow them for eleven waves, selecting broadly the same variables at each wave.

The first sampler focuses on the theme of work, family and health, but it can also be used to examine social mobility and income mobility and is ideal as a teaching resource. The dataset comprises individual level records with a number of background variables indicating parental social class, and some opinion variables relating to the work and family theme. Household attributes are also linked in.
		The second file is based around the theme of social and political attitudes and the dataset includes background and household level variables, and questions on income and financial expectations, private health care, political affiliation and voting intention. The third teaching dataset, contains wave one respondents and follows them for thirteen waves. This dataset is based around the theme of time use, leisure activity and membership of social organisations and allows for respondents' behaviour to be tracked over time.

Data and metadata are stored in folders and sub-folders on the Nesstar server and are accessed in precisely the same way that you would open folders in 'My Computer' or 'Windows Explorer'. Users can drill down into the Metadata folder to access information on how the dataset has been produced or click on the Variable Description folder to browse the variables included in the dataset and to run frequency counts for any variable of interest. See the ESDS Introductory Guide to Nesstar.

    


In addition to requesting question frequencies, Nesstar allows registered ESDS users to conduct cross-tabulations and graph data online. For longitudinal research purposes, an important feature of the BHPS samplers is that users can cross-tabulate responses at time t1 with responses at, for example, time t6.


Registered users also have the facility to weight the data (both cross-sectionally and longitudinally), subset the data and download the data in their preferred format.

Nesstar is a web-based system for the exploration and dissemination of data. The system allows users to search for, locate, browse, analyse and download a wide variety of statistical data within a web browser. The UK Data Archive, in its role as service provider for the ESDS, hosts a Nesstar server populated by its most popular survey data series. It is necessary to register with ESDS to undertake exploratory data analysis beyond requesting simple frequencies.

L1 Guide to the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) Nesstar teaching datasets