Using the Understanding Society study for longitudinal research

Alexey Bessudnov (Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Exeter) will share top tips on getting started with Understanding Society in your PhD/MReS research.

Funded by ESRC, Understanding Society is the largest longitudinal study of its kind. It provides crucial information for researchers and policymakers on the changes and stability of people’s lives in the UK on topics including Biomarkers, Genetics and Epigenetics; Covid-19; Education; Employment; Ethnicity & immigration; Family & households; Health & wellbeing; Politcs & Social attitudes; Transport & environment; Young people. As with most other longitudinal household surveys, the structure and documentation of the Understanding Society are quite complex. Sometimes this may seem as an obstacle for researchers who are just starting to use the data.

In this 60 minute webinar on Zoom, Alexey will:

• • • Provide top tips on how the Understanding Society files are structured and how they can be linked and reshaped.
  • • Demonstrate how to work with the Understanding Society files in R.
  • • Suggest possible questions that could be posed by researchers using Understanding Society.
  • • Alexey’s presentation will also be followed by a Q&A session