The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) is a study of people aged 50 and over and their partners. ELSA is a large multi-centre and multidisciplinary study that has been developed through collaboration between three primary institutions: University College London (UCL), the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), with academics at the Universities of Manchester, Cambridge, Nottingham, Exeter and East Anglia.

This technical report focuses specifically on the study's methodology and conduct of the second wave. Information about the wave 1 methodology can be found in Taylor et al. (2007). Throughout, this report is based on the most up-to-date available data. As a result the numbers involved may in some cases differ slightly from those presented in the methodology chapter of the wave 2 report (Cheshire et al., 2006).

This technical report should be used in conjunction with the extensive materials deposited at the UK Data Archive, study number 5050 and Economic and Social Data Service. These include a User Guide, which shows how to analyse the data and provides information about weights and other information needed for analysis. The UK Data Archive also provides the route to access core ELSA data. Some sensitive data, such as geographical information, is not available through the Data Archive but can be applied for directly from the study team.

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