title: A synthetic Longitudinal Study dataset for England and Wales.
abstract: This article describes the new synthetic England and Wales Longitudinal Study 'spine' dataset designed for teaching and experimentation purposes. In the United Kingdom, there exist three Census-based longitudinal micro-datasets, known collectively as the Longitudinal Studies. The England and Wales Longitudinal Study (LS) is a 1% sample of the population of England and Wales (around 500,000 individuals), linking individual person records from the 1971 to 2011 Censuses. The synthetic data presented contains a similar number of individuals to the original data and accurate longitudinal transitions between 2001 and 2011 for key demographic variables, but unlike the original data, is open access.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dennett
authors.affiliation: School of Geography, University of Leeds, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Norman
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Shelton
authors.affiliation: Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Stuchbury
keywords: Demography; Geography; Health Sciences; Longitudinal; Microdata; Social Science