Six waves of Understanding Society data have now been released. This gives researchers the opportunity to learn more about how the lives of families and households in the UK have evolved over since. We can look at what has changed and what has stayed the same in people’s work, attitudes, family lives, health, housing, education and activities. Wave 6 also introduced a sample of an additional 3,000 new households containing 8,500 adults and children from immigrant and ethnic minority groups, the Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Boost (IEMB).
The IEMB refreshes and expands the original Ethnic Minority Boost (EMB) recruited at Wave 1 of Understanding Society in 2009. Like the EMB, the IEMB oversampled five key ethnic minority groups in the UK; Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean, Black African; but it additionally oversampled immigrants.
When the IEMB is combined with the rest of the Understanding Society data it is representative of all immigrants in the UK and will allow researchers to conduct research into growing areas of interest related to immigration and immigrants. As well as covering additional members of groups in the original Ethnic Minority Boost, the new Wave 6 data covers larger numbers of the following groups:
- 948 Western European (EEA) migrants
- 728 Eastern European (EEA) migrants
This is a very exciting addition to Understanding Society. At a time when interest in immigration and in more recent immigrant groups is increasing, the IEMB enables researchers to analyse the experience of recent and longer term migrants, and those migrating to the UK from a much wider range of countries.
- My Understanding Society project page gives more information about this fantastic resource.
Lucinda Platt 