Producing Working-Life Histories in the UKHLS and BHPS

The document describes a Stata algorithm for producing working-life histories for participants in the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS). It also describes in detail questionnaire items related to working lives from the two studies.

The Changing Association Between Homeownership and the Transition to Parenthood

The literature suggests a positive link between homeownership and the transition to parenthood. However, in recent decades, couples' preference for becoming homeowners before having their first child has been undermined by rising housing unaffordability and housing uncertainty. An archetypal example is Britain, where homeownership rates among young adults have fallen substantially as a result of low wages, unemployment, reductions in the availability of mortgage credit, and rising house prices. This situation has produced a housing crisis. Using longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey (1991–2008) and the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (2009–2016), we apply multilevel, discrete-time event-history techniques to a sample of women aged 18–42. We investigate whether and how the link between homeownership and entering parenthood has changed in Britain in recent decades. Our findings reveal that in comparison with the 1990s, the likelihood of becoming a parent has declined among homeowners, whereas childbearing rates among private renters have remained stable. Thus, owner-occupiers and private renters have become more similar in terms of their likelihood of entering parenthood. Overall, our findings question the classical micro-level assumption of a positive link between homeownership and transition to parenthood, at least among Britain's “Generation Rent.” These findings are subsequently interpreted in terms of increased housing uncertainty.

Group Incomes and Preferences for Redistribution

In this chapter, I examine the relationship between group incomes and individual attitudes toward redistribution. One major implication of heuristic theory is that individuals who are members of relatively high income ethnic groups or live in high income regions should oppose redistribution more than those in relatively low income ethnic groups or regions. To test this, I present global data from the World Values Survey, UK data from the British Household Panel Survey, and Czech and Slovak data from the Central and Eastern Eurobarometer. I show that the predicted pattern holds in all three settings across a range of approaches, and close by discussing the methodological lessons from these analyses.

Uncertainty, Labor Markets, and Group Heuristics

In this chapter, I examine the effect of uncertainty on the relationship between ethnic and regional incomes, linked fate, and attitudes toward redistribution. Uncertainty is a key ingredient in heuristic theory, as heuristics for learning about future interests are unnecessary where future interests are certain. I test the argument using data from a survey of Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom, Slovak data from the European Social Survey, and the British Household Panel Survey.

In and Out of Self-Employment, Are You Really an Entrepreneur: The Rise of a New Division?

This paper examines self-employed individuals in the UK Labour market. We use an amalgamated dataset, the British Household Panel Survey, from the years 1991 to 2008, and its successor the United Kingdom Longitudinal Study, from years 2010 to 2014, following 11,657 respondents in the UK for 23 years. We explore the characteristics of different self-employed groups and create a new division that differentiates those who sustain in self-employment from those who move between self-employment and employee jobs. The sample size consists of 1146 sustained self-employed, 1149 dabbled self-employed and 9362 paid workers. We found that dabblers exhibit unique set of attributes that place them in a distinct position compared to sustained self-employed and/or employees. Dabblers seem to be ‘pulled’ rather than ‘pushed’ into self-employment, reflecting a labour market ‘power’ instead of deficiency. Thus, bringing key insight into a group who have not been separately identified in the labour market to date, the self-employed dabblers.

Assessing and Relaxing Assumptions in Quasi-Simplex Models

The quasi-simplex model (QSM) makes use of at least three repeated measures of the same variable to estimate reliability. The model has rather strict assumptions and ignoring them may bias estimates of reliability. While some previous studies have outlined how several of its assumptions can be relaxed, they have not been exhaustive and systematic. Thus, it is unclear what all the assumptions are and how to test and free them in practice. This chapter will addresses this situation by presenting the main assumptions of the quasi-simplex model and the ways in which users can relax these with relative ease when more than three waves are available. Additionally, by using data from the British Household Panel Survey we show how this is practically done and highlight the potential biases found when ignoring the violations of the assumptions. We conclude that relaxing the assumptions should be implemented routinely when more than three waves of data are available.

The Dynamics OF “Neither Agree nor Disagree” Answers in Attitudinal Questions

Attitudinal questions are an integral part of surveys in the social sciences. Previous research based on cross-sectional data has shown that both respondents’ characteristics and questionnaire design can lead to higher use of midpoint responses when questions are operationalized on uneven rating scales. To further current understanding of this phenomenon, in this article we apply hybrid regression models to analyze differences between respondents but also developmental changes within respondents, allowing for a more profound interpretation of the dynamics behind midpoint responses, theoretically explained by satisficing behavior. For our midpoint analyses, we use a set of attitudinal item blocks asked in the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) from 1991 to 2008. Respondents’ reports and interviewers’ judgments offer satisficing-related indicators regarding ability and motivation, enabling particularly accurate analyses of midpoint response behavior in terms of the “neither agree nor disagree” option. Results show that depending on respondents’ specific characteristics, higher use of the midpoint cannot automatically be equated with nonsubstantive response behavior. Furthermore, we demonstrate that specific indicators related to low ability and motivation do not uniformly increase midpoint responses. Application of the hybrid model reveals that changes in respondents’ characteristics do not affect midpoint response. We speculate that there are unobserved personality attributes that affect the propensity to midpoint response and conclude by reflecting on reasons for the increase in midpoint responses over the years.

What is the impact of financial shock on reaching happiness frontier?

This paper provides a framework to reveal happiness frontier based on British Household Panel Survey. Thereafter we focus on what is the impact of financial shock on reaching the frontier. By doing so we also explore the nexus between personality traits, such as extraversion, neuroticism, and openness, and the financial shock. We further reveal the underlying causality threads.

Satisfied Movers Revisited

Job mobility is an especially useful concept in sociology; where positions in a structure, not the characteristics of individuals, explain inequality. Thus, moving between positions should give significant rewards to workers. This assumption is often overlooked and doesn’t sit well with today’s precarious markets. I ask “what do workers get from mobility?” Drawing from the British Household Panel Survey (2000-2008) I test mobility’s effects on subjective and objective outcomes. Results do not support that mobility, in itself, leads to overall better jobs. Rather, internal change contains premiums beyond the characteristics of workers, while external change leads to subjective premiums alone.