COVID-19 and mode selection effects in Understanding Society

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic meant that face-to-face interviewing had to be suspended on Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study in March 2020. When face-to-face interviewing was suspended, all adult sample members were invited to complete their annual interview online, with a telephone follow-up for non-responders. The changes to the survey context and modes have the potential to affect the representativeness of respondents. Overall, the response rate for the 2020 sample was just 1.5 percentage points lower than the response in 2019, however this differs by sample characteristics. There are small but significant differences in the responding sample in 2020.