This is a guide to the purposes and potential of one of the most significant national and increasingly international resources for analyzing social change. It explains the possibilities and pitfalls in the analysis of panel study data.

Part 1: Introducing Household Panel Studies 1. Household Panel Studies: An overview 2. Panel Surveys: Adding the fourth dimension 3. Using Panel Studies to Understand Household Behaviour and Wellbeing Part 2: Panel Data Quality 4. Panel Attrition 5. Weighting in Household Panel Surveys 6. Dealing with Measurement Error in Panel Analysis 7. Tangled Webs of Family Relationships: Untangling them with panel data 8. Dissemination Issues for Panel Studies: Metadata and documentation Part 3: Examples of Panel Data Analyses 9. Dynamics of Poverty and Determinants of Poverty Transitions: Results from the Dutch socio-economic panel 10. Low Income Dynamics in 1990s Britain 11. A New Approach to Poverty Dynamics 12. Using Panel Data to Analyse Household and Family Dynamics 13. Using Panel Surveys to Study Migration and Residential Mobility