Understanding Society User Support

Dear Jacob,

Thank you for your quick reply. I would like to address a few follow-up questions on your reply and explain what we want to do.

We are especially interested in tracing the living location in wave 2 of young adults living at the parental home in wave 1, i.e. are they still living with their parents or not in wave 2. For those who are interviewed in wave 2 we know their living location and arrangement. For those not interviewed in wave 2 we do not know whether they are living with their parents. When the parent(s) are interviewed in wave 2 their information on the (previous) household members might help us to trace the living location of these missing young adults in wave 2.

To be sure, the variables Curstat, Absuni, Movewith, Mothr, and Lvwhy are not in any wave 2 database? Is there any other available variable that might be helpful for our purpose?

The xwhist might be helpful if we have more information about the construction of the categories. I created a freq table of xwhist, is it correct to say that the first letter of the labels relates to postcodes in wave 1, and the second letter to postcodes in wave 2 (except for the bhps)? How should we then interpret FO: no contact was made with about 19000 respondents in wave 2 who are still living at the same address as in wave 1?

The OF is a little bit puzzling, can you tell us what that is?

Thank you,
Peter Tammes

This type of question can in some cases be answered by studying the household composition of persons across waves (using pidp and w_hidp).
xwhist is based on the postcode of everyone enumerated (W_INDALL). It is "O" if the person is not enumerated at a particular wave (first character is first wave, second second, etc.). A person can be enumerated if they are considered to be only temporarily away (cf. w_ivfio on W_INDALL). "OF" are UKHLS sample members first enumerated at the second wave. The study will follow up persons that have moved to another household at a known address in the UK (more details on following rules can be found in the user guide).
Jakob