About this study

Understanding Society is the largest social research study of its kind in the world with 40,000 UK households – 100,000 individuals – taking part. 2009 is the study's first year.

The survey will reveal what life is like for individuals and families living in the UK. We will talk to everyone aged 10 and over living in a household that's invited to take part. We hope to speak to these households every year and record what changes - and stays the same - in people’s health, education, family, wealth, employment and political engagement.

By following people in this way, Understanding Society will create a lasting record of who we are and what we believe. You can learn more at the Understanding Society website.

Potential policy impact

Governments and society at large will benefit from Understanding Society's insights.

Evidence of how people live from year to year will enable better long-term policy planning. Understanding Society’s size, long duration and range of topics will give policy makers vital perspectives on key economic and social issues.

Method

We are inviting a nationally representative sample of 40,000 households to take part in Understanding Society. NatCen is responsible for conducting the annual survey. We will be using a number of methods to collect information from participants, including face to face interviews and self completion questionnaires.

Given this large sample size we are collecting data from survey participants over a two year period. While each wave of interviews will take two years to complete, waves will overlap so that participants are interviewed annually.

Before launching this first wave of interviews we conducted an Innovation Panel. We used this Innovation Panel to test different methods of data collection and trial types of questions. Innovation Panels will be conducted before each wave of interviews.

Focus on ethnicity
Ethnicity is an important part of Understanding Society. Until now there has been no national survey that interviews a substantial number of ethnic minority group members from year to year.

Understanding Society aims to fill this gap. We have selected addresses from postcode areas where there is a higher population density of ethnic minority members. By this means we hope to make sure that the five main ethnic minority groups are represented in the survey. Bilingual interviewers have been recruited to support this and the questionnaire is available in nine different languages.

Children and the survey
Children aged between 10-15 are being asked to fill in a questionnaire that asks about their hobbies, friends, school-life and hopes for the future.

Funding and leading
The study is an initiative by the Economic and Social Research Council, with scientific leadership by ISER, University of Essex. Understanding Society both replaces and incorporates the successful, but smaller, British Household Panel Survey.