Major survey series

[Page last updated 28 September 2018]

A selection of major surveys of interest to social science.  They are well documented and most of them are available for secondary analysis and/or teaching.  

United Kingdom

Data from major UK surveys are routinely deposited with the UK Data Service
Used extensively in tutorials and/or  commentaries on this site are:
​   British Social Attitudes Survey 
   ONS National Well-being Survey 
  See also page: UK: Academic and Other Major Surveys 

Other regular surveys include:
   1958 National Child Development Study 
   1970 British Cohort Study 
   Millennium Cohort Study

​UK: Major Government Surveys
Large-scale government surveys are key data resources for social science researchers.  The acquisition, processing and delivery of the large-scale government datasets under this service is undertaken by the UKDA. Data are available via the web-based download system and the ESDS Nesstar system for online browsing and visualisation of the data.  Examples (links are to Google searches, some of which include UKDS Data Discovery)
   General Lifestyle Survey 
   Family Expenditure Survey (now the Living Costs and Food Survey)
   British Crime Survey
   English House Condition Survey

Regular polls by major research companies.
​

Europe

Europe: Major survey series
There are several regular Europe-wide surveys, data from which are placed in the public domain.  These include:
​European Social Survey (See commentaries on page MacInnes 2017)
European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS),  
European Values Study 
and various ad-hoc surveys carried out for the European Commission

USA

General Social Survey conducted by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) University of Chicago
(See commentaries on page MacInnes 2017)USA: Major survey series)
Surveys by the Survey Research Center , University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.