Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner. 

The aim of the <i>British Election Panel Study 1983, 1986 and 1987</i> was to investigate the relationship between social and political change in the period between 1983 and 1987. Particular topics which were the focus of attention included the impact of council house purchase, and purchase of shares in the newly privatised companies, on political preference. Full reports of these analyses are contained in the publication by A.F. Heath et al, <i>Understanding Political Change</i> (see 'Reports by Principal Investigators' section for full bibliographic details). The study was also designed to investigate attitude stability and change and vote switching.

Main Topics:

The study consists of a follow-up to the 1983 British General Election Study, Cross Section Survey (held at the Archive under SN:2005). Respondents were re-interviewed in the autumn of 1986 and again after the 1987 general election in the summer of 1987. Data file 01 contains the 1983 and 1986 responses of panel members who completed the 1986 round of interviews. Data file 012 contains the 1983, 1986 and 1987 responses of panel members who completed all three rounds of interview. The content of the 1986 and 1987 questionnaires largely consists of identical questions to those asked in the 1983 British Election Study (BES), thus making it possible to compare responses over time. The files also contain a split-half experiment on the question-order of party identification and vote (see Heath and Pierce, 1992 - full bibliographic details in 'Reports by Principal Investigators' section). Standard Measures The dataset contains standard measures of the Goldthorpe class schema.

Multi-stage stratified random sample

Face-to-face interview