Primary standards are concepts and questions on key topics that should be used on all social surveys, for example gender and age.
Harmonisation which extends to all or nearly all major government household surveys can be thought of as covering a primary set of concepts and questions.
These sets of harmonised concepts and questions provide a standard means of collecting information about a given topic.
PDF documents concerning primary standards are available to download from the table.
| Title | Description |
| Demographic information, household composition and relationships (102.1 Kb Pdf) | Basic descriptive information about respondents, including age, sex and marital status. Also standard ways of categorising and describing households and families by their members and relationships. |
| Ethnic group (95.6 Kb Pdf) | Standard way of collecting information on the ways in which people describe their ethnic identity. |
| Economic status and industry (153.9 Kb Pdf) | A number of standards used to classify respondents according to their industry, occupation, and employment status. These are used to produce standard Economic Status and Socio-economic Classifications. |
| General Health & Carers (71.7 Kb Pdf) | Provides questions about general health for respondents. Also includes questions on basic caring for other people. |
| Long-lasting Health Conditions and Illnesses: Impairments and Disability (196.8 Kb Pdf) | Provides questions about long-term health conditions and illnesses for respondants. Also includes questions on impairments and disabilities. |
| Other primary harmonised standards (104 Kb Pdf) | Contains miscellaneous topics, including: survey reference period, geography, educational attainment and tenure. |
