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What is administrative data?
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World of work

Over the average person’s lifetime in the UK, 84,000 hours will be spent at work. ADR UK aims to link administrative data to better understand this aspect of our lives.

Person in a blue boilersuit in a workshop

Understanding this huge component of our lives can provide a window into the day-to-day reality of many and shed light on the underlying dynamics that influence important economic forces, such as the job market.

ADR UK is working with the University of the West of England on the Wage and Employment Dynamics (WED) data linkage project which sits within this theme. WED aims to provide rich and novel insights into the dynamics of earnings and employment in Great Britain. This project will bring together anonymised data from the Annual Survey of House and Earnings (ASHE), Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), and the 2011 Census to better understand and improve current policy challenges, such as in-work poverty, the UK Gender Pay Gap, and the impact of the National Minimum Wage. The creation of this newly linked dataset will bypass limitations created by solely analysing survey data, or the datasets individually, thereby enabling researchers to broaden their scope and understanding of the labour market in Britain.

As part of the ‘Poverty and Fair Work’ programme, ADR Scotland is working to enable a better understanding of the functioning of the Scottish labour market and its interactions with the combined Scottish and UK welfare benefit systems. It also hopes to support the development of the Scottish Child Poverty Measurement Framework and policies to reduce child poverty, and to explore the relationship between employment and health. This stream of work will assess specific areas of work, social security and health outcomes in Scotland, informing Scottish policy developments (such as the Fairer Scotland Fund, the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, and the Single Gateway Scottish Health and Work Service), as well as addressing areas identified as analytical priorities by the DWP.

ADR Northern Ireland is linking data to generate novel insights into the health and educational attainment of Northern Irish farmers, as well as factors associated with economic inactivity in the country in general; whilst ADR Wales is working to link data which will enable deeper investigation of the progression from post-statutory school age education, as well as pathways into employment in Wales.

More in-depth information about the individual data linkage and research projects being undertaken within this theme can be explored below.

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If you are a researcher interested in working with admistrative data within this theme, or a policymaker interested in how ADR UK work can improve your insights and support your decision making in this area, please get in touch. 

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