Understanding Society Research Conference: Call for Papers

24-26 July 2013
University of Essex, Colchester, UK

The Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) will be hosting the 2013 Understanding Society Research Conference from Wednesday 24 July to Friday 26 July 2013 at the University of Essex.

This conference provides an international forum for the exchange of research based on longitudinal data. An important aim of the conference is to bring together people from different disciplines. Papers may be based on any aspect of economics, sociology, politics, social psychology, or research and survey methods.

There is no conference fee. Contributions towards travel and accommodation costs will be available (only for those presenting papers, one contribution per paper presented). 300 word abstracts of papers for presentation at the Conference should be submitted by 15 March 2013.

ISER are not only keen to receive papers using Understanding Society and the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS), but also the European Household Panel (ECHP), the European Union Statistics of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) and from other UK and non-UK longitudinal studies, as well as comparative papers using the major national panel surveys and the Cross National Equivalent File.

Submit an abstract
Download a poster

EU-LFS and EU-SILC User Conference: Call for Papers

Users’ Conference 2013: Call for Papers

European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) and European Union Statistics on Income & Living Conditions (EU-SILC)

21 - 22 March 2013, Mannheim, Germany

Deadline for Submission: 31 October 2012

The 1st European User Conference for EU-LFS and EU-SILC, organized by the German Microdata Lab, GESIS, financially supported by Data without Boundaries, in cooperation with Eurostat, will provide researchers with the opportunity to present and discuss their work and share their experience.

Researchers of all disciplines (e.g. economics, demography, geography, political science, public health, and sociology) who use either EU-LFS or EU-SILC microdata are encouraged to participate and to submit an abstract.

More information & application form: http://dwbproject.org/events/users_conf1.html

 

Consultation on EU-SILC

Eurostat is currently evaluating the usefulness of the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), and examining the options for the future of the survey. They have commissioned a small team at ISER to write a report on one aspect of the EU-SILC, namely the design of the longitudinal component of the survey.

As part of this exercise, ISER have prepared a survey for the research community, asking researchers about their experiences with the EU-SILC data, and what they think about the different options for changing the design.

The survey can be found here https://essex.eu.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_eQC5D4XtnOmzE0t

Call for Papers: European LFS/SILC User Conference

European Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) and European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC)

DwB partner GESIS, in cooperation with Eurostat, is organising its European User Conference in Mannheim, Germany, on 21 and 22 March 2013.

Researchers of all disciplines (e.g. economics, demography, geography, political science, public health, and sociology) who use either EU-LFS or EU-SILC microdata are invited to participate and to submit an abstract through the e-form available at: http://www.gesis.org/en/events/conferences/european-user-conference-3/submission-form/.

Substantive topics may include, among others, all aspects of the European labour market, living conditions, migration, income inequalities, poverty and social exclusion. Methodological topics may include e.g. questions of data quality, cross-national and inter-temporal comparability, and statistical modeling. All presentations must be comparative and include data from at least two countries.

Abstracts should not be longer than 1000 words. The abstract should be informative, clearly state the research question, indicate the dataset(s) used and the countries analyzed. The submitters will be notified by 15 January 2013, whether their paper is accepted for presentation or not.


Deadline for submission of abstracts (1000 words maximum): 31 October 2012

Conference webpage: http://www.gesis.org/en/events/conferences/european-user-conference-3/

Announcement of the European User Conference (pdf, 203 Ko): http://dwbproject.org/export/sites/default/events/doc/cfp_eu-user_conference_2013.pdf

Contact people: christof.wolf@gesis.org or Heike.Wirth@gesis.org

Further details: http://dwbproject.org/events/users_conf1.html

Variable Labels for EU-SILC

Programmes to format variable labels in Stata for the EU Survey of Income and Living Conditions for both cross-sectional and longitudinal datasets for 2004-2008 have been made available on the RLAB data website http://rlab.lse.ac.uk/itsupport/data/rlabdata/default.asp

Eurostat microdata now free

As of the 1st April 2011 Eurostat have decided to stop charging for their microdata resources. Anonymised versions of the EU Labour Force Survey, the Survey of Income and Living Conditions, the Community Innovation Statistics, the Structure of Earnings Survey and the Adult Education Survey are now available for free via approved research contracts. It appears that charges to access to detailed microdata via the Eurostat SAFE centre in Luxembourg have also been dropped, however I cannot confirm this at the moment.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/microdata/introduction

End of General Lifestyle Survey? Consultation

There will be changes made to the General Lifestyle Survey (GLF) due to the decision to source EU-SILC data from the Family Resources Survey. The ONS propose merging the GLF with the opinions survey. If you use GLF and are concerned about changes, please see more detail below, and consider responding to the consultation.

Summary

2011: The GLF health, health determinants and use of health services question blocks will be removed or reduced in 2011 if the NHS Information Centre withdraws funding.
2012: Subject to the results of a public consultation, the GLF will cease to exist in its current format and will be replaced with a new combined Opinions / GLF survey.

ONS presentation at GLF User Meeting, March 2011

From 2012, the European Union requirement for Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) will be met using the Family Resource Survey (FRS) for respondents in their first year (the cross-sectional component) and a new telephone based survey for respondents in their second to fourth year (the longitudinal component). Currently, the EU-SILC requirement is met by the General Lifestyle Survey (GLF). The move from the GLF to the FRS will result in significant benefits in terms of cost savings and greater harmonisation between poverty indicators used by the UK and the EU.

EU-SILC covers housing, employment, income, state benefits, material deprivation and general health. Therefore, after 2011, the GLF will not need to collect these topics for the EU requirement. This provides an opportunity to review the GLF data collection with respect to existing and future data needs. ONS is currently consulting on this and specifically, its proposal to stop the existing longitudinal GLF survey and to replace it with a new cross-sectional survey, which would be a combination of the ONS Opinions and GLF surveys. The Opinions survey has many similarities with the GLF, in terms of the sample design, sample size and data collection methodology.

As part of the ongoing consultation, the ONS would welcome comments from GLF users about the combinations of variables that they need in order to conduct their research. ONS would also welcome comments from users about how their data requirements might be met using a new Opinions / GLF Survey or through existing sources. For example, ONS requests users’ input on the content and design of a new survey.

The NHS Information Centre has put forward a proposal to cancel its funding of the health, health determinants and use of health services questions on the GLF from Apr 2011 onwards because of budget reductions. If this proposal is accepted questions that cover these topics will be removed later this year.

Given this new information, you may wish to reply to the GLF consultation document (even if you've already done so previously): www.ons.gov.uk/about/consultations/open-consultations/eusilc-integration-into-frs/