Understanding Society User Support

Hello Bing,

As the user guide mentioned (https://www.understandingsociety.ac.uk/documentation/mainstage/user-guides/main-survey-user-guide/selecting-the-correct-weight-for-your-analysis/), specifically in the example box, if your analysis pools multiple waves, you should select the longitudinal (“*_lw”) weight from the last wave included in your analysis. So, for a longitudinal analysis using Waves 1–14, you would use a Wave 14 *_lw weight.

Which specific Wave 14 *_lw weight you should use depends on the instrument and the level of analysis. For example, if you are analysing individuals using the individual questionnaire, you should use o_inding2_lw. This is the most comprehensive longitudinal individual weight, as it has all UKHLS samples (i.e., GPS, EMBS, BHPS, IEMBS, and GPS2).

I hope this information is helpful

Best wishes,
Roberto Cavazos
Understanding Society User Support Team