Understanding Society User Support

Hi Marianne,
there are different ways of doing this.
One option is to start off with the data file XWAVEDAT. It includes every person who has ever been enumerated in any wave of the BHPS, and in principle you only need the PID from this data file. Next add the FPID from each wINDALL to every person's record on XWAVEDAT by matching on PID.

Note that there may be data inconsistencies, i.e. the FPID may vary over time from 0 when the father is not co-resident to a positive number when the father is co-resident but also to a different positive number if a different co-resident person is identified as the father in one of the waves. You will need to clean this, assuming you just want to use the information relating to 1 biological father. When you have decided the FPID for each person, rename the PID (e.g., to KPID for Kid PID) and FPID to PID. Then merge this file to the wave specific wINDRESP files using PID to add the union status of the father. After that you will need to rename the variables relating to the father and undo the renames of PID to KPID and FPID to PID again. Now that the PID refer to the child again, you can merge on PID to add the child’s characteristics from other files.

Hope this helps,
Gundi