Revealing Women's Health: Re-analysing the General Household Survey

Secondary analysis of the General Household Survey (GHS) provides enormous and largely untapped potential for addressing feminist issues about women's health. This chapter will briefly discuss the GHS and then illustrate some of the ways in which secondary analysis can be used to exploit GHS data. Three case-studies will illustrate different ways in which the GHS can be used for feminist analyses of health. The exemplars focus on gender differences in sickness absence, gender and care of elderly disabled people, and inequalities in women's health. What is secondary analysis? Simply, it refers to any reworking of data which has already been analysed by some other researcher or organization (Dale et al: 1988). Hyman defines secondary analysis as 'any further analysis of an existing dataset which presents interpretations, conclusions or knowledge additional to, or different from, those presented in the first report on the inquiry' (Hyman 1972: 1). Because government data sets such as the GHS are relatively underanalysed by their originators, they provide a tremendous opportunity for secondary analysis. The GHS is a multi-purpose continuous survey which has been carried out annually in Britain since 1971. It was designed to provide for the statistical needs of various government departments, for example: the Department of Health is concerned to monitor trends in the nation's health and use of health services; the Department of Employment is interested in trends in employment, unemployment, and patterns of job search; and the Department of the Environment uses the GHS to monitor migration and housing conditions. Other core areas asked about each year include education, income, family structure, and family