Panel Micro-Databases for Socio-Economic Research in Europe:

ECHP, CHER, CNEF

& EPUNet

What makes a good panel study ?

– high data quality • experienced field work agency• theory based, pre-tested questions• validation, filter checking, longitudinal consistency, etc.

– active and permanent cooperation of data collectors and research community

– easy accessibility and reasonable price

– easy handling of data for empirical analysis

– (interactive) user (online) support

– thorough documentation

CHERConsortium of Household

Panels for European Socio-economic Research

Main objective

To develop a comparative database for longitudinal

household studies by harmonizing and integrating existing

micro-datasets for the purpose of scientific analysis and

policy assessment

CHER Micro-Database (18 countries in the 1990s)

– 14 EU member states + Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, USA• ECHP-UDB for those countries without a national panel• D (SOEP), UK (BHPS), LUX (PSELL), B (PSBH)

– User-friendly data structure with yearly data on individuals and households

– Observation Years 1990 – up to 2000

– Research Areas:

• Demography, Health, Education,

• Employment and Activity,

• Income and Expenditure, Housing and Household Durables,

• Subjective Information and Social Relations

•Available to the scientific community

•Supported software formats: SAS, SPSS, Stata, ASCII

•Linked Files

MMM-Database•MISSOC: institutional information on social security•MISEP: institutional information on employment policy•Macro-data: time series information on macro-economic indicators

(e.g. unemployment rate, GDP growth rate).

Bibliographical Database (focus on panel research)

• Extended documentation & user support– Norm statement & Deviation document for each country

– Documentation of each underlying survey • sample characteristics (e.g. random, register, quota sample),

interview mode, attrition, population coverage, etc.

– WWW-based information http://www.ceps.lu/Cher/Cherpres.htm

• Contact and further information: – Coordinator: CEPS/Instead (LUX)

gunther.schmaus@ci.rech.lu

– Main Partners: ISER (UK), DIW (GER)

CNEF

Cross-National Equivalent File

Main objectiveTo provide equivalently defined variables for cross-national panel research for the: UK (British Household Panel Study ( BHPS), Canada (Canadian Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) Germany (Socio-Economic Panel Survey (SOEP), and the USA (Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)

CNEF

• Research Areas covered: – Demographics, HH composition, – Region (basic), Health (basic) – Employment (basic), Education (basic), – Annual income (major focus)– Macro-Level information (e.g. CPI)

• currently available data on 1980-2002– PSID 1980 to 1997, 1999, and 2001 on over 33,000 individuals and

7,000 households - GSOEP 1984 to 2002 on over 20,000 individuals and 6,000

households. – BHPS 1991 to 2001 on over 21,000 individuals and 6,000 households – SLID* 1993 to 2001 on over 95,000 individuals and 32,000

households

• Supported software formats:

– SAS, SPSS, Stata, ASCII

• CNEF information can easily be merged to original survey data

– original identifiers supplied

• Documentation & user support

– Detailed codebook on methods and algorithms used to create each variable in each country, based on original survey variable names), anddescriptive statistics for each variable

– “Reliability” codes for comparability of variables across countries

– WWW-based user support and email-hotline

http://www.human.cornell.edu/pam/gsoep/equivfil.cfm

ECHP

European Community Household Panel

Overview of the ECHP

• A harmonised cross-national longitudinal survey focusing on household income and living conditions

• also includes items on health, education, housing, migration, demographics and employment characteristics.

• runs from 1994 to 2001.

Wave One (1994) sample of some 60,500 households i.e.

approximately 130,000 adults aged 16 years and over interviewed across 12 member states (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, the United-Kingdom).

Wave Two 2 (1995) Austria, then Finland joined in wave 3 (1996)

From Wave 4 (1997) Sweden provides cross-sectional data in the UDB format derived from its National Survey on Living conditions.

For most countries, surveys carried out using the harmonised ECHP questionnaire. For some countries the institutes in charge of the production of the ECHP converted national data surveys into ECHP format to replace the ECHP from 1997 onwards.

Therefore some information might not have been collected in the national surveys so that they will appear as missing in the ECHP. In other cases, variables that were not collected in the national survey were imputed based on similar variables.

Nature of ECHP data by country and year (Harmonised original ECHP data and data derived from existing national sources)

Countries Full ECHP Data Format

ECHP Data Format Derived from National Surveys

Belgium*, Denmark,France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands*, Spain,

Portugal

1994-2001 -

Austria 1995-2001 -

Finland 1996-2001 -

Germany 1994-1996 1994-2001 (SOEP)

Luxembourg 1994-1996 1997-2001 (PSELL)

United-Kingdom 1994-1996 1994-2001 (BHPS)

Sweden - 1997-2001 (SLCS)(Cross-sectional data only)

Characteristics of the ECHP dataset

• Multi dimensional character of the topics covered - microdata on a wide range of topics at the level of individual and household: income, social life, housing condition, health, education, employment, training, and so on.

• cross-national comparability of the data - a harmonised and comparable dataset across countries achieved through implementation of common procedures at all stages from the design of a harmonised questionnaire, harmonised definitions and sampling requirements.

• longitudinal nature of data -provides information on relationships and transitions over time at the micro level.

Synopsis

ECHP CHER CNEF

# countries 14 18 4

Data provider Official Statistics: Eurostat, NDUs

Research institutions Research institutions (extensively used)

Main aim of data collection

focus on monitoring living conditions in EU

Plus: further develop empirical & theoretical considerations to explain human behavior

Plus: further develop empirical & theoretical considerations to explain human behavior

Mode of harmonization

input / ex-post (DE, UK, LU)

ex-post ex-post

Micro-data linkable to underlying survey

n.a. yes yes

Time period covered 1994 – 1999 (terminated 2001)

1990 – 2000(end ?)

1980 – 2002(on-going)

Max panel length 8 years 11 years 18+ years

SynopsisECHP CHER CNEF

Documentation (survey, variables, desc. stats)

improvable extended extended

User support by data provider

low high (to come) high

Online support no yes (to come) yes

Major advantages full EU coverage, high degree of comparability

coverage of Eastern European transition economies

ongoing & long-running

Data availability (update)

rather slow end of 2003 last update Spring 2003 (data of 2001)

Data files pooled across countries, year specific

pooled across countries, year specific

country and year specific

Variable naming convention

fully harmonized across time

harmonized, year specific

harmonized, year specific

Rationale for EPUNet• ECHP not well utilised

• ECHP complex and difficult to analyse

• ECHP available but expensive and access administratively difficult

• Potential users cannot “try before they buy”

• Users are isolated from other users

EPUNet

was set up by the European Panel Analysis Group

• to encourage and support the maximum use of the ECHP data by independent analysts

• to develop and maintain links between researchers analysing the ECHP

was funded by the EC until end 2005

Main Partners

Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) Essex, UK

German Institute for Economic Research, (DIW) Berlin, DE

Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) Dublin, IE

Centre d’Etudes de Populations, de Pauvrete et de Politiques Socio-Economiques (CEPS/Instead) LU

Other Partners

Tilburg Institute for Social and Socio-economic Security Research (TISSER) Tilburg, NL

Dept of Sociology and Social Research (DSSR) Milano-Bicocca IT

Centre for Labour Market and Social Research (CLS) Aarhus, DK

Services for new ECHP users

A basic user guide to the ECHP

A data transcription service

Training Sessions in data access and panel analysis

Short Term Research Visits

Technical Links Between Analysts

A register of data queries and solutions

A file of derived variables

An e-mail hotline (EPUNet-Mail@diw.de)

A register of current projects and a library of published results

An annual research conference

A web-site

Shared Research Results

EPUNet2004Berlin 24-26 June 2004In conjunction with GSOEP2004

EPUNet2005Essex July 2005In conjunction with BHPS2005

EPUNet CONFERENCES

EPUNet Web Site:

http://epunet.essex.ac.uk

EPUNet Email:

EPUNet@isermail.essex.ac.uk

CONTACT