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

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

New 27 country model of EUROMOD announced

The first-ever all-EU version of the microsimulation model, EUROMOD, has been released to the research community.

EUROMOD is a tax-benefit microsimulation model for the European Union (EU) that enables researchers and policy analysts to calculate, in a comparable manner, the effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes and work incentives for the population of each country and for the EU as a whole.

EUROMOD is managed, maintained, developed and updated by the Microsimulation Unit, a team of researchers in ISER. This is done in collaboration with national experts.

The current version of EUROMOD represents the accumulation of technical developments and expertise over a number years and involving a large team of people. For more information about EUROMOD’s design and development, including a current project, go to EUROMODupdate2.

Some simple statistics showing the redistributive effects of taxes and benefits in the EU, calculated by EUROMOD, can be viewed here: EUROMOD statistics

Methodological challenges associated with Non-Response and Missing Data in ageing populations

3rd February 2012 11:00-16:30
Institute for Social & Economic Research (ISER), Social Science Research Centre, room 2N2.4.16, University of Essex

The workshop brings together researchers and experts from different cohort and longitudinal studies with a common interest in dealing with the complexities of non-response and missing data. The workshop includes demonstrations using new software (Stata 12), as well as presentations from major ageing cohort studies. 

Topics and speakers include (the speaker list may change on the day):

11:00-11:45 Shaun Scoles, Centre for Applied Health Research, UCL Practical issues related to non-response, weighting and imputation in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

11:45-12:30 Jonathan Bartlett, Department of Medical Statistics, LSHTM A demonstration of multiple imputation approaches and methods using Stata 12

12:30-13:15 Rebecca Landy, MRC Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing, UCL A simulation of 1946 birth cohort data using three different missing data mechanisms- complete case, multiple imputation and Heckman selection.

13:15-14:00 Lunch

14:00-14:45 Paul Clarke, CMPO, University of Bristol Adjusting for non-ignorable non-response in a longitudinal analysis of residential mobility

14:45-15:30 Jenny Head, Whitehall II study, UCL  Joint modelling approaches to analysing health decline in studies with informative drop-out

15:30-15:45 Tea and coffee break

15:45-16:30 Peter Lynn, ISER, University of Essex Influences on response rates amongst older respondents in household panel surveys

The workshop is free for participants to attend but registration is essential. Workshop attendees can claim travel expenses. Please book a place using the booking form below:

http://www.methods.manchester.ac.uk/ageingcohort/seminar-3/booking.shtml

Introduction to Understanding Society – the UK Household Longitudinal Study

Date & time: November 29, 2011 13:00
Venue: Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER), University of Essex, Colchester, CO4 3SQ, UK.

To register to attend this lunchtime seminar, or for more details, please email Victoria Nolan vlnolan@essex.ac.uk. The seminar will be held in the Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) seminar room (on the ground floor) – it is free of charge and a buffet lunch will be available from 13:00.

This lunchtime seminar will provide an essential overview of the Understanding Society survey and its content, data access, data structure and documentation. It will be of interest to anyone who is planning to access and use the new Understanding Society data for their research.

This seminar provides a fantastic opportunity to get to know the survey and the possibilities for research based on the Understanding Society data. It will be presented by Gundi Knies, a Senior Research Officer at ISER who has been closely involved with the Understanding Society project from the outset. This seminar is an opportunity not to be missed, to be one of the first to gain a detailed picture of the enormous research potential of this new dataset.

Understanding Society now includes the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) sample, thus extending the analysis and research possibilities. Understanding Society greatly improves the range of longitudinal analyses that can be carried out given its larger sample size and its in-built design features such as data linkages and inclusion of an ethnic minority boost sample. For researchers using the BHPS, there is an Introduction to BHPS using Stata course being held at the University of Essex on 28th and 29th November.

Understanding Society/BHPS conference 2011 - submission deadline

The call for papers for the Understanding Society conference 2011 is now open. The deadline for abstracts is March 15th 2011. For more information see the website

http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/understanding-society-bhps-conference-2011/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Understanding+Society++BHPS+Conference+2011+-+Deadline+for+abstracts&utm_content=Understanding+Society++BHPS+Conference+2011+-+Deadline+for+abstracts+CID_b09466c05dc0724060ed0b92a939a1aa&utm_source=Email+marketing+software&utm_term=Conference+website