Wave 13 focussed on the redevelopment of the questionnaire in 3 areas: Employment, Wealth and Retirement. A summary of all changes to questions since Wave 12 is detailed in the Wave 13 Module summary table.
The long-term content plan lists the Waves in which all the modules were last asked and when they will be asked again. Most of the rotating modules for Wave 13 were last asked in Waves 10 and 11. The module summary table lists the modules in the order they are asked within the Wave 13 questionnaire.
New modules for Wave 13 include:
- Mental health conditions
- Job search
- Other work
- Self-completion: Gambling
Note: The modules Gig economy and Second jobs are now within the Current employment module. Changes to the employment variables are explained in the section ‘Changes to employment variables in Wave 13’.
These Wave 13 modules were last carried at Wave 11. These include modules on:
- Family networks
- Parents and children (0-15)
- Self-completion: Partner relationships
- Child maintenance ((0-15), 16-19 in full-time education)
- Nutrition
- Social care
Modules that are asked every three years and which are included in Wave 13 include:
- Sleep quality
- Self-completion: Mental well-being
- Remittances (extra 5 minute questions)
- Benefit data linkage consent
- FCA data linkage consent
The youth questionnaire for Wave 13 included rotating content on family support, family talking/quarrelling, bullying at home, behaviour, homework, misbehaviour, bullying at school, savings, pocket money, earnings caring, nutrition, obesity, exercise, environmental behaviour/attitudes.
Tips for analysts: COVID-19
In response to the pandemic the Wave 11 and 12 questionnaires were adapted to capture changes during this time. Updates went into the field on 28 July 2020. Wave 13 included some questions from the Covid-19 Survey. When using Waves 11 and 12 researchers need to take into account how the pandemic impacted the main study and consider the effects of mode transition, changes to the questionnaire and analysis of changes during the pandemic compared to the pre- and post pandemic.
We have brought together a document to help researchers explore Understanding Society changes to the main study due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 dataset
The COVID-19 survey started in April 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and interviewed participants from the main Understanding Society sample via a web-survey. This started as a monthly survey and shifted to bimonthly after July 2020 and continued until September 2021. In addition to questions directly related to Covid-19 (symptoms, testing, vaccination), the survey includes questions on different aspects of people’s lives that could have been impacted by the pandemic. The released data also includes the data on serology antibody testing conducted in March 2021 and 2019 pre-pandemic data from the main survey interviews.
