Notes

Survey of English Housing (SEH)

Main uses

SEH has two main purposes.  First, as its name suggests, it is a survey about housing in England.  In this respect, its focus is mainly on the households' use of the house rather than the condition of the house itself, the main English survey on the latter being the English House Condition Survey.

Second, it is general household survey for England asking a number of questions about households and individuals, with a particular focus on their neighbourhood.

SEH is the English equivalent to the Scottish Household Survey, Living in Wales Survey and Northern Irish Continuous Household Survey.

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Source

In summary:

  • Available from: the Department of Communities and Local Government.  Request via david.wall@communities.gsi.gov.uk, 020 7944 3301.
  • Registration required: no.
  • First survey available: 1993/94.
  • Frequency: annual.
  • Updated: November.
  • Scope: England.
  • Format: SPSS.
  • Files: 2 files per year, one at the household level and the other at the individual level.
  • Documentation: none.
  • Weighted or unweighted: weighted.
  • Household income data: yes but unequivalised only.

The dataset is unusual in that the household-level file is simply a subset of the individual-level file (i.e. all the individual-level records for the individuals in each household who are designated as the 'Household Reference Person').  Putting this another way, the relevant household data has been added on to each of the records in the individual-level dataset.

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General issues

Which software to use

As the annual dataset is around 46,000 records for individuals and 19,000 records for households, it can be exported into Excel.

When to use the individual and household datasets

For analyses about individuals, use the individual-level dataset.  For analyses about households, either use the household-level dataset or the individual-level dataset filtered such that only the Household Reference People are included in the analysis.

What weights to use

There are a number of fields which appear to be weights but all bar the field 'H4B' (2006/07 onwards) or 'H4A' (prior to 2006/07) are apparently redundant.

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Relevant graphs on this website

UK graphs

Because the dataset is for England only, the graphs below are also for England only.

Indicator Table Graphs Comments
Ability to travel households second  
Homelessness individuals last Requires a complicated analysis.
Overcrowding individuals second  
fourth Requires a complicated analysis.
In mortgage arrears households second  
Dissatisfaction with local area households first Requires the household income to be grouped and those wit no income data excluded.
second Deprivation not asked since 2004/05.
third Better/worse not asked since 2004/05.
fourth Deprivation not asked since 2004/05.

Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland graphs

These graphs are similar, but not identical, to the English graphs above and come from the following surveys:

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