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Version: 2.1.0 | Published: 23 Oct 2023 | Updated: 466 days ago
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Wealth and Assets Survey - Great Britain

Dataset

Summary

Citation:
Office for National Statistics, released 16 September 2022, ONS SRS Metadata Catalogue, dataset, Wealth and Assets Survey - Great Britain, https://doi.org/10.57906/jj2j-zw28

Documentation

Description:
The Wealth and Assets Survey is a longitudinal survey aiming to address gaps in data on the economic well-being of households. It includes: level of assets, savings and debt, saving for retirement, how wealth is distributed among households or individuals, and factors that affect financial planning. Only private households in Great Britain were sampled for the survey, meaning people in residential institutions, and homeless people were not included. WAS commenced in July 2006, and ran to June 2008. Interviews were achieved with 30,595 households at Wave 1. Those households were approached again for a Wave 2 interview between July 2008 and June 2010, and 20,170 households took part. Wave 3 covered July 2010 - June 2012, Wave 4 covered July 2012 - June 2014 and Wave 5 covered July 2014 - June 2016. Revisions to previous waves' data mean that small differences may occur between originally published estimates and estimates from the datasets held by the SRS. Survey Periodicity The survey periodicity moved from “Waves” (July, ending in June two years later) to “Rounds” (April, ending in March two years later). Interviews using the ‘Wave 6’ questionnaire started in July 2016 and finised in March 2018. Data for Round 6 covers April 2016 to March 2018. This comprises of the last three months of Wave 5 (April to June 2016) and 21 months of Wave 6 (July 2016 to March 2018). Round 5 and Round 6 datasets are based on a mixture of original wave-based datasets. 18,995 households comprise the Round 5 dataset; 18,034 the dataset for Round 6 and; 17,541 the dataset for Round 7. Each wave of the survey has a unique questionnaire, so each of these round-based datasets are based on two questionnaires. While there may be changes in the questionnaires, derived variables for key wealth estimates have not changed over this period. The aim is to collect the same data, though in some cases the exact questions asked may differ slightly. Detailed information on Moving the Wealth and Assets Survey onto a financial years basis was published on the ONS website in July 2019. Main Topics The questionnaire contains two parts, with all adults aged 16 years and over (excluding those aged 16 to 18 currently in full-time education) being interviewed in each responding household. Household schedule: Completed by one person in the household (usually the head of household or their partner) and mainly collects household level information such as the number, demographics and relationship of individuals to each other, and information about the ownership, value and mortgages on the residence and other household assets. Individual schedule: each adult in the household, asking questions on: economic status, education and employment, business assets, benefits and tax credits, saving attitudes and behaviour, attitudes to debt, insolvency, major items of expenditure, retirement, attitudes to saving for retirement, pensions, financial assets, non-mortgage debt, investments and other income.

Coverage

Spatial

Spatial Coverage:
Great Britain
Geographical Levels:
  • country
  • LEA
  • lsoa11
  • oa11
  • region

Temporal

Start Date:
01 July 2006
Latest Data:
31 March 2020
Frequency:
BIENNIAL
Distribution Release Date:
16 September 2022

Provenance

Source:
Survey

Access and Governance

Usage

Condition of Access:
Standard access conditions for the use of data in the SRS
Condition of Use:
Standard conditions for the use of data in the SRS
Resource Creator:
Office for National Statistics

Access

Access Service:
  • Safe Rooms, SafePods
  • Assured Organisational Connectivity – office based
  • Assured Organisational Connectivity – remote access
Jurisdictions:
  • GB-EAW
  • GB-SCT
Data Controller:
Office for National Statistics
Access Level:
Access Level 3

Format and Standards

Languages:
en
Formats:
SPSS