Understanding Society User Support

Understanding Society User Support Team wrote in #note-2:

Dear Emma,

You are correct about the w_ivh1 - w_ivh16 variables. While we don’t have specific syntax for this situation, you can refer to the following resources on our website https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/syntax/

Distributing household-level information to the individual level
Summarising individual-level information at the household level
Merging individual files across waves into wide format
Merging individual files across waves into long format

Your linking variable will be the combination of w_hidp and the PNO from w_ivh1 - w_ivh16.

It is possible for more than one person to answer the household questionnaire. This usually occurs in face-to-face interviews, where one member of a couple may know more about certain topics (e.g., mortgage/rent), while the other knows more about expenses like food and utility bills. That’s why there is a set of binary variables.

I hope it helps.

Best wishes,
Piotr Marzec
UKHLS User Support

Hi Piotr,

That definitely helps - thank you very much. When I'm looking at these w_ivh1 - w_ivh16 for the specific wave I'm looking at, the questionnaire appears to have been completed by a non-household member in nearly 5% of cases. Is there a way to determine who this person might be? Seems like a larger proportion than I would expect.

Two other quick questions:
1. Can I just check that the PNO referenced in w_ivh1 - w_ivh16 (in w_hhresp) maps cleanly onto the pno variable in w_indresp.
2. I am interested in the Matdep hh_resp questions. I can see that these were asked only when "If ((GRIDVARIABLES.NKIDS015 > 0) | (GRIDVARIABLES.NKIDS015 = 0 & GRIDVARIABLES.NPENSIONER = 0))". Do I understand this correctly as only asked when "One or more children aged 0 to 15 in the household OR no children aged 0 to 15 in the household AND nobody of pensionable age in the household"? Why was this not asked of all households? Am I correct in interpreting therefore that these were only shown to household with nobody of pensionable age, and the separate pdep questions were presented to the remaining households? Is there any documentation to this?

Many thanks,
Emma

Hi Emma,

1) Yes.
2) Yes, you're correct about the universe for the matdep questions – these are not asked of households with pensioners, and there is a separate set of pdep questions for those households. The former is adapted from the Family Resources Survey, while the latter originates from the Department for Work and Pensions. Looking at the questionnaires, it seems that the matdep questions were asked of everyone in waves 1 and 2, but a more limited routing was introduced from wave 4 onwards. I’ll try to find out why this change was made and will get back to you when I have more information.

Best wishes,
Piotr Marzec
UKHLS User support

Hello,

Is there any documentation about the decision making about which questions to include in the household vs. individual-level questionnaire, particularly for wave 12?
I am looking at wave 12 and can't see anything in the technical fieldword report about this. I am particularly interested in the development of the questions on "Neighbourhood Conditions" (waves 3, 6, 9, 12) and why these were allocated to the household questionnaire whereas the items on "local neighbourhood" service quality and trust were incorporated in the individual level questionnaire.

Many thanks,
Emma

Hello Emma,

The questions from the "local neighbourhood" module (nbrcoh1 to nbrcoh4, nbrcoh_dv, and nbrcohdk_dv) have been moved to the household questionnaire in Wave 12 to align them with their original source. These questions were initially designed to be asked to a representative of each household.

For more information, please refer to:
Earls, Felton J., Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, Raudenbush, Stephen W., and Sampson, Robert J. Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods: Community Survey, 1994-1995. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-03-29. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02766.v4

Robert J. Sampson et al., Neighborhoods and Violent Crime: A Multilevel Study of Collective Efficacy.Science277,918-924(1997).DOI:10.1126/science.277.5328.918

I hope this information is helpful.

Best wishes,
Roberto Cavazos
Understanding Society User Support Team