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.
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.
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.
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:
- The Scottish Household Survey.
- The Living in Wales survey.
- The Northern Ireland Continuous Household Survey.