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The UK Household Longitudinal Study

Capturing life in the UK in the 21st century Understanding Society is the largest longitudinal household panel study of its kind and provides vital evidence on life changes and stability

Essential information for survey participants

Every time you are interviewed, you are contributing to a unique study about life in the UK

Your participants area
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Someone sitting on their own in a cafe

Loneliness and the cost to the NHS

Loneliness linked to worse health and around £850 a year healthcare costs per person

blog
a man hand-in-hand with a child walking into a 'job centre plus'

Which policies can both boost growth and help people on low incomes?

Traditionally, reducing labour market insecurities has been pursued as a separate goal. But five policy areas could boost both productivity and equality

Case study
Girl in school uniform with glass of squash

Autumn Budget 2025 supports ‘most vulnerable’

Living standards think tank used our data to assess government economic policy

news
icons of health data

Registration now open – Biosocial Conference 2026: combining biological and social data

Understanding Society is pleased to announce that registration is now open for its Biosocial Conference 2026.

Topics

Latest research

Mental health effects of caregiving for older parents in the UK: the roles of social support, neighborhood cohesion, and neighborhood deprivation

  1. Pilar Zueras
  2. Emily Grundy

Family environments and educational inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK

  1. Ting Shen

Causal effects of genetically predicted type 2 diabetes mellitus on blood lipid profiles and concentration of particle-size-determined lipoprotein subclasses: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study

  1. Ken Chen
  2. Jilin Zheng
  3. Chunli Shao
  4. Qing Zhou
  5. Jie Yang
  6. Tao Huang
  7. Yi-Da Tang

Gendered dynamics of gig economy dependence and life satisfaction: the mediating role of perceived financial insecurity

  1. Zhengxiu Sun
  2. Senhu Wang
  3. Ya Guo
  4. Shuangshuang Song
See all research

Understanding Society in the media

Research using data from the Study is frequently featured in the media.

Media mentions

Latest media articles

Which policies can both boost growth and help people on low incomes?

Pushover fathers tell kids ‘wait until Mum gets home’

Is Britain bowling alone?

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