The Millennium Cohort Study: the making of a multi-purpose resource for social science and policy

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14301/llcs.v7i4.410

Keywords:

Millennium Cohort Study, lifecourse inequalities, Sure Start, neighbourhood effects, UK regions

Abstract

This paper gives an account of the origins, objectives and structure of the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) – some 19,000 individuals born in the UK in 2000-2001 – and its use in a wide range of research on many aspects of their lives in childhood years. We highlight some of the mass of output on the first five surveys to age 11 in 2012. Topics discussed are social inequalities in child development; comparisons with other cohorts; areas not well covered by previous national cohorts: season of birth, fathers, ethnicity and childcare; parental behaviour; intergenerational links; social ecology and differences between and within UK countries. We also discuss the challenges faced by the National Evaluation of Sure Start (NESS) in drawing controls from the MCS. As the cohort marches to its seventh survey in 2018, and beyond, the potential for research across life course domains will only continue to grow.

Author Biographies

Heather Joshi, Centre for Longitudinal Studies UCL Institute of Education

Professor Emerita

Centre for Longitudinal Studies

 

Emla Fitzsimons, UCL Institute of Education

Professor of Economics
Centre for Longitudinal Studies
Department of Social Sciences
UCL Institute of Education

Downloads

Published

2016-10-26

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 4 (2016): Longitudinal and Life Course Studies

Section

Study Profile

License

Authors who published with Longitudinal and Life Course Studies Volumes 1–9 agreed to the following terms:

1. Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal right of first publication with the work, simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

2. Following first publication in this Journal, Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal, provided always that no charge is made for its use.

3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g. in institutional repositories or on their own website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.