Support #2000: BHPS+UKLHS weigths - Understanding Society User Support

Support #2000

BHPS+UKLHS weigths

Added by Aelen Valen 7 months ago. Updated 5 months ago.

Status:

Resolved

Priority:

High

Assignee:

Category:

Weights

Start date:

12/05/2023

% Done:

100%

Description

Hello, first of all thanks for you prompt support, that's super helpful!
My issue is the following: I pooled BHPS and UKLHS to perform two analysis of inequality of opportunity, panel and cross-sectional. I'm basically using a measure of equivalised household income (if I'm not wrong, fihhmngrs_dv is the only one that we have for all the waves from 1991 to now, right?) and individual/parental variables like sex, ethnicity, country of birth, mother and father education, occupation and place of birth to measure inequality in income, predicted by this set of variables (inequality of opportunity).
I want to compare the estimate across waves, should I use indinui_xw as weights?
For a longitudinal analysis which weigths shoud I use? Are there no missings in the weighting variables right? Is it most likely my mistake in the pooling if I have missing values in the weighting variables?

Thanks a lot!

Updated by Understanding Society User Support Team 7 months ago

Category set to Weights
Status changed from New to Feedback
% Done changed from 0 to 50
Private changed from Yes to No

Hello Aelen,
You are correct, “fihhmngrs_dv” is the household income variable harmonised (BHPS + UKHLS).

If your analysis uses only data from one Wave, select the “xw” (cross-sectional) version of the weight. This weight is defined for all sample members who responded to the relevant questionnaire at a particular Wave. If your analysis uses data from multiple or consecutive waves select an appropriate “lw” (longitudinal) version of the weight. For example, if you are looking at waves 4 to 9, use the appropriate longitudinal weight from the last wave in your analysis (wave 9).

After you have decided on the population you want to generalise your results to and the questionnaire(s) you want to use, refer to these tables (https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/documentation/user-guides/mainstage/weights.pdf) to decide the appropriate weight for your analyses.

Alternatively, you can refer to Table: Naming convention for Understanding Society weights w_XxxYyZz_aa which makes it easy to choose the correct weight at https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/user-guides/main-survey-user-guide/selecting-the-correct-weight-for-your-analysis

Weight “indinui_xw” is for samples GPS, EMB, BHPS & IEMB and only for wave 6 onwards. You may use “indinub_xw” for waves 2 to 5 and “indinus_xw” for wave 1 if you are analysing interviewers and individuals 16+ years old.

For zero weights issues please refer to https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/user-guides/main-survey-user-guide/zero-weights

I recommend exploring the section “Selecting the correct weight for your analysis” at https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/user-guides/main-survey-user-guide/selecting-the-correct-weight-for-your-analysis for further information.

I hope this information is helpful.

Best wishes,
Roberto Cavazos
Understanding Society User Support Team