The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is a longitudinal survey conducted by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

, following the lives of a sample of about 18,818 babies born in the UK in the year 2000–2001.

History

The MCS is the fourth longitudinal birth cohort study conducted in the UK. Its aim is to create a multi-purpose data-set that describes the diversity of backgrounds into which children are born in the beginning of the 21st century. The information collected includes topics such as child development,

social stratification Social stratification refers to a society's categorization of its people into groups based on socioeconomic factors like wealth, income, race, education, ethnicity, gender, occupation, social status, or derived power (social and political ...

and family life in order to identify possible advantages and disadvantages that the children are facing. The survey is conducted in different sweeps with the first one concentrating on the circumstances of the pregnancy and birth as well as the first few months of life. This first part of the survey is also important to record the socio-economic background of the family into which the child is born. The second sweep took place when the children were about 3 years of age and the main focus was on continuity and change in the family as well as the parenting environment to extract information about the child’s development. In the third sweep in 2006, the children were at the age of starting primary school. The fourth sweep took place in 2008, the fifth was in 2012 and the sixth in 2015. The following sweep was planned for 2018. The MCS is funded mainly by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and various government departments, such as the Department for Children, Schools and Families, the

Department of Health (United Kingdom) The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for government policy on health and adult social care mat ...

(DH) and the

Department for Work and Pensions The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for welfare spending, welfare, pensions and child maintenance ...

(DfWP). The

Scottish Government The Scottish Government (, ) is the executive arm of the devolved government of Scotland. It was formed in 1999 as the Scottish Executive following the 1997 referendum on Scottish devolution, and is headquartered at St Andrew's House in ...

, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Executive have also contributed to fund the survey. Heather Joshi was director of the survey from 2000 to 2011. Emla Fitzsimons was the director from 2013.

Methodology and scope

The sample is structured by geographical clusters, allowing certain areas with significant

ethnic minorities The term "minority group" has different meanings, depending on the context. According to common usage, it can be defined simply as a group in society with the least number of individuals, or less than half of a population. Usually a minority g ...

(in England), high levels of child poverty, as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to be overrepresented.

Survey results

By 2016 the MCS findings have already been included in over 700 journal articles, books, etc.

References

Bibliography

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External links

ESDS Longitudinal website Millennium Cohort Study data setsCentre for Longitudinal Studies website
British medical research Society of the United Kingdom Child welfare in the United Kingdom Cohort studies Demographics of the United Kingdom UCL Institute of Education