Welcome to CeLSIUS:

Centre for Longitudinal Study Information and User Support

Welcome to the Web site of CeLSIUS, the support team for UK university based users of the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study (the 'LS'). We are the people to contact if you are thinking about a research project using the LS.

CeLSIUS is one of the services funded by the ESRC Census Programme and as such our services are provided free of charge to staff and students of UK academic institutions.

What is the LS?

The LS is a data set comprising linked census and event records for 1% of the population of England and Wales (about 500,000 people at any one census). It was set up in 1974 to address problems with the adequacy of occupational mortality data, and the lack of longitudinal fertility data, but since then it has been used to address a wide range of other research questions.

If you're new to the LS, take a look at our What is the LS? section for further details.

Is the LS for me?

The LS is useful for longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of census and events data. It contains:

All information from census returns since 1971, including data on occupation, economic activity, housing, ethnicity, age, sex, marital status and education.
Events data on births & deaths, fertility, mortality, migration and cancer registrations.
Geographic data.

The LS has been used in a wide range of studies, but for certain types of study there are other data sets that might be more appropriate. To find out whether the LS is suitable for your study, look at the Is the LS for me? section.