Understanding Society: Marital and Cohabitation Histories, 1991-2023

<p><span style="font-style: italic;">Understanding Society</span>, (UK Household Longitudinal Study), which began in 2009, is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex and the survey research organisations Verian Group (formerly Kantar Public) and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991.</p>
<p>Understanding Society (UK Household Longitudinal Study), which began in 2009, is conducted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex and the survey research organisations Kantar Public and NatCen. It builds on and incorporates, the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), which began in 1991.</p>
<p>The Understanding Society partnership history file, Understanding Society: Marital and Cohabitation Histories, 1991-2023 contains information about the start and end dates of all partnerships, i.e., marriages, civil partnerships, cohabitations (living together as a couple) as reported by adult respondents in all Understanding Society (UKHLS) and British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) samples. This has been created from the following data: (i) Understanding Society: Waves 1-14, 2009-2023 and Harmonised BHPS: Waves 1-18, 1991-2009 (SN 6614); (ii) British Household Panel Survey: Waves 1-18, 1991-2009 (SN 515); and (iii) British Household Panel Survey Consolidated Marital, Cohabitation and Fertility Histories, 1991-2009 (SN 5629). See SN 6614 for full details of the Understanding Society main study.</p>
<p><b>Latest edition information</b></p>
<p>For the sixth edition (February 2025), data from Wave 14 of the main Understanding Society study were added to the study and the documentation updated accordingly. Additional data cleaning and consistency checks were also conducted.</p>
<p>Users should note that the Stata format files contain additional Stata %tm format date variables that are not present in the SPSS and tab-delimited versions. This is due to differences between the available date variable formats in the Stata and SPSS software packages.</p>
<p></p>