We regularly host short presentations and training sessions to support the research community engaging with the ASHE dataset. These sessions are typically 30-45 minutes and consist of a 15 minute presentation followed by questions and answers.
There are 3 types of webinar sessions that we run:
- Expert User Sessions – for those familiar with ASHE who want to know what is in the new dataset and how it has changed (primarily a research/academic audience)
- New User/Technical Session – for those considering whether to use ASHE and how it can help research (primarily a research/academic audience)
- Information Session – non-technical data about ASHE and its potential to answer research/policy questions. e.g., ‘using the geographic data in ASHE’ (primarily a policy audience)
Previous webinars have been recorded and are shared below
Previous Webinars
An Introduction to the Updated ASHE-Census Dataset March 2023
In this webinar, the WED team will update researchers on work to link individual records in ASHE with individual records in the 2011 Census for England and Wales. Version 1 of the linked dataset was released in September 2022 and linked 62% of eligible records in ASHE to individual records from the 2011 Census. In Version 2 of the dataset (to be released in Spring 2023), the linkage rate has been improved to 74%. Where a link has been established, it has been possible for ASHE to incorporate employee level data from the 2011 Census on a range of personal characteristics, including the employee’s educational qualifications, country of birth, ethnicity, religion, and disability status. These Census data items are available for the matched individual in any year that they appear in ASHE. The linked dataset is being made available to researchers via the ONS Secure Research Service and provides opportunities for new research on issues such as the returns to education and wage inequality.
The webinar will provide researchers with an overview of the linkage process and outcomes. It will also illustrative the capabilities of the linked dataset and explain how potential users can gain access to it.
Creating enriched versions of the core ASHE and ASHE-2011 Census linked datasets November 2022
A discussion and practical guide on how to create enriched versions of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) and ASHE – 2011 Census linked datasets. The standard core ASHE and ASHE – 2011 Census datasets are currently available in the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Secure Research Service. The enriched versions can only be generated by running WED-developed Stata code over the original datasets. The enriched versions of the dataset include additional variables, such as minimum wage rates and survey dates, as well as new cross-sectional and two-period longitudinal weights. With the support of ONS, the WED team are making this Stata code freely available to accredited researchers to use. The enriched datasets provide opportunities for new research on issues such as the returns to education and wage inequality.
In this webinar, the WED team:
- introduce the datasets and coding structure
- demonstrate how the code can be run
- explain how researchers can get access to the code files.
Adding employee characteristics to the ASHE using the 2011 census June 2022
In this webinar, the WED team will explain the results of work to link individual records in ASHE with individual records in the 2011 Census for England and Wales. Where a link has been established, it has been possible for ASHE to incorporate employee-level data from the 2011 Census on a range of personal characteristics, including the employee’s educational qualifications, country of birth, ethnicity, religion, and disability status. These Census data items are available for the matched individual in any year that they appear in ASHE. The linked dataset is being made available to researchers via the ONS Secure Research Service and provides opportunities for new research on issues such as the returns to education and wage inequality.
The webinar will provide researchers with an overview of the linkage process and linkage outcomes. It will also describe the weights that have been constructed to account for linkage biases, and explain how potential users can gain access to the linked data.
Cross-sectional and longitudinal weights in the ASHE June 2022
In this webinar, the WED team will explain two new sets of alternative weights developed for the ASHE.
The first is an alternative set of cross-sectional weights. Weights are provided with the existing ASHE dataset, enabling it to be representative of employees by gender, age, occupation and region. However, while the ASHE is based on a sample of employee jobs, the survey is completed by employers. We explore the characteristics of employers responding to ASHE, and find that certain types of organisations are over or under-represented in the achieved sample. We develop an adjusted set of cross-sectional weights that reduce these biases.
The second is a set of longitudinal weights for users wishing to analyse the ASHE data across adjacent years. Records within ASHE are linkable longitudinally, and it is often assumed that the panel sample is free of any attrition biases. We explore the validity of this assumption by comparing rates of year-on-year sample retention in ASHE with rates of employment retention estimated from a reference dataset (the Longitudinal Annual Population Survey). We find systematic patterns of longitudinal attrition in ASHE, which have the potential to introduce bias into longitudinal analyses of these data. In response, we construct longitudinal weights that correct for estimated attrition biases over adjacent years in ASHE.
ASHE technical session December 2021
ASHE Expert User session December 2021
ASHE Information Session November 2021
Using ASHE to explain Low Pay Transitions November 2020
Alex Bryson (UCL) and Van Phan (UWE) discuss the WED team’s recent policy paper presented to the LPC. They will report on time-series estimates of the percentage of minimum wage jobs, low paid and ‘high paid’ jobs observed. Alex and Van will also share important methodological considerations including the construction of hourly pay in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE); the identification of ‘main’ and ‘other’ jobs; the incidence of missing data; and the use of rounding. Insight will be given into the increase in minimum wage jobs, and also an increase in the number of ‘high paid’ jobs.
WED Q & A Session October 2020
The WED team invited all researchers, policy holders, and funders with an interest in the UK labour market and the Wage & Employment Dynamics Project. Any queries and questions were discussed and raised in the session.
Why QA the ASHE after 40 years? August 2020
The complexity of data sources is being driven by the demand for microdata and in-depth detail at the aggregate level. One of the primary data sources for researchers and policy advisors analysing the UK labour market is the Annual Survey of Household Earnings (ASHE). Arusha McKenzie (UWE) and Damian Whittard (UWE) will discuss why it is important to quality assure data from the Annual Survey of Household Earnings (ASHE) after 40 years. A case study will be analysed to show evidence of potential bias in a key analytical variable, further evidencing the need for revised documentation and the need for additional markers.
Introducing the WED Project July 2020
The WED project is building new data that will increase our understanding of how people’s wages progress through their career. At the project’s core is the development of a new version of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) dataset, which is being linked to various other official datasets (e.g. Census) for secure, de-identified research use. The linked dataset will enable new research on a wide range of wage and employment issues, from labour market entry, through job mobility and career progression to retirement. In this introduction, Professor Felix Ritchie will outline the intended outputs from the project and explain how researchers and analysts will be able to access the resulting data.