Table 1

Characteristics of working-age men and women in a sample from the British Household Panel Survey, 1991–2007

	Person-years of data
	Frequency	Per cent
Male	43 006	48.38
Female	45 889	51.62
Higher education	18 724	21.06
Highest academic qualification: A-levels	19 308	21.72
Highest academic qualification: O level/GCSE	31 660	35.62
No academic qualifications	19 203	21.60
No physical-health problems	42 898	48.26
Suffers from ≥1 physical-health problems	45 997	51.74
Married or cohabiting	61 685	69.39
Widowed, divorced or separated	8455	9.51
Never married or cohabited	18 755	21.10
Spouse jobless	12 811	14.41
Spouse employed	48 605	54.68
Spouse not a GHQ-12 case	46 181	51.95
Spouse is a GHQ-12 case	15 235	17.14
No spouse	27 479	30.91
No spells of unemployment in past year	82 455	92.76
≥1 spells of unemployment in past year	6440	7.24
Owned or privately rented housing	76 218	85.74
Social housing	12 677	14.26
No substance abuse reported	88 502	99.56
Substance abuse reported	393	0.44
Securely employed	59 365	66.78
Insecurely employed	9317	10.48
Unemployed	3235	3.64
Permanently sick	3484	3.92
Other economically Inactive	13 494	15.18
Total person-years for each variable	88 895	100