Understanding Society User Support

Dear Understanding Society Team,

I am currently working with data from the UKHLS and have some questions regarding response patterns across different waves.
Specifically:

1. For the GHQ12 variable (scghq2_dv), there appear to be large differences in the rates of missing, inapplicable, and proxy responses across waves. For example, the total rate of these responses in Wave 1 is about 20%, but the total rate in Wave 14 is about 5%. This is quite different.

2. Similarly, for the variables jbsoc00, jbsoc10, and jbsoc20, we observed significant differences in the rates of missing responses across waves. For example, the missing rate of jbsoc20 in Wave 14 is about 27%, the missing rate of jbsoc10 in Wave 14 is about 6%, and the missing rate of jbsoc00 in Wave 14 is about 1%。

We have reviewed the "Main Survey User Guide" but could not find specific explanations for these discrepancies. We would appreciate it if you could clarify the reasons for these differences. Thank you for your time and assistance.

Best regards,
Yiwen Zhang