Growing Up in Scotland

Organisation responsible: Growing Up in Scotland (GUS) is commissioned and funded by the Scottish Government and is being carried out by the Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen), in collaboration with the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) at the University of Edinburgh and the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit (SPHSU) at the University of Glasgow.

Background and purpose: GUS follows the lives of a national sample of Scotland's children from infancy through to their teens. It is one of the largest longitudinal studies ever done in Scotland and is designed to provide information that will help develop policies affecting children and their families. The study seeks to describe the characteristics, circumstances and experiences of children in their early years (and their main carers) and to generate a better understanding of how children's start in life can shape their longer term prospects and development with particular reference to the role of early years service provision.

Study length: The survey began in 2005 and initially recruited a total of 8,000 children in 2 cohorts: 5,000 babies (~10 months) in the birth cohort and 3,000 toddlers (~34 months) in the child cohort. In 2018, as part of sweep 9/age 12 fieldwork, an additional group of 502 children were recruited to the cohort to improve the representativeness of the data.

Sample characteristics:

The families were selected at random from Child Benefit records provided by DWP and HM Revenue and Customs and received a letter inviting them to take part in the study. Each year, participants are contacted by letter and invited to take part in the latest sweep, with participation on an entirely voluntary basis.

Birth cohort 1

This cohort contains 5217 children, born between June 2004 and May 2005. Data was collected annually from their families from between the ages of 10 months and just under 6 years, then every 2 years until the children were aged 14 and mostly in their third year of secondary school. Data collection at age 17, which is the eleventh sweep of face-to-face data collection for this cohort, commenced in November 2021 and was to be complete in early 2023.

In 2018, as part of sweep 9/age 12 fieldwork, an additional group of 502 children were recruited to the cohort to improve the representativeness of the data. The additional sample was drawn from Child Benefit records held by HMRC. Children born between 1st June 2004 and 31st May 2005 and in at least one of the two key sub-groups (i.e. mother aged 16-24 at birth; living in 15% most deprived data zones in Scotland) were eligible for inclusion. Further details can be found in the Sweep 9 User Guide (PDF).

Birth cohort 2

This cohort contains around 6127 children born between March 2010 and February 2011. Data was collected from their families when the children were 10 months old, just under 3 years old, and just under 5 years old. Telephone and on-line interviews with parents of Birth Cohort 2 children at age 4 were launched in January 2014 and ran to January 2015. The last sweep of data collection was conducted in 2015/16.

There are no current plans to collect further data from this group.

Child cohort

This cohort contains 2858 children born between June 2002 and May 2003. Four sweeps of data were collected from their families from between the ages of just under 3 years to just under 6 years. There are no current plans to collect further data from this group.

Survey content: The interviews at each sweep collect information from the child's main carer about a range of issues related to young children and their parents including:

• characteristics and circumstances of children and their families in Scotland;
• housing, neighbourhood and community - including accommodation characteristics, ownership of material goods, moving home, appraisal and use of local facilities, involvement in local groups;
• food and eating - including eating habits, main meals, types of food eaten, sources of advice on children's diets/healthy eating;
• activities with others - including participation in educational, social or recreational activities at home and elsewhere, and visits to places or events;
• child health and development - including general health, long-standing and acute illness, health service contact, use of Accident and Emergency, hospital admissions, anthropometric measurements, communication and behavioural development indicators;
• parenting styles and responsibilities - including awareness, use and appraisal of parenting techniques, parent-child activities, household division of labour;
• main carer support - including informal social networks, access to informal support, attendance at groups and classes, attitudes towards and use of formal support services;
• childcare and work-life balance - including details of childcare used, cost, choice, employers' family friendly policies, and attitudes to work-life balance;
• experience of pre-school - including uptake, reasons for enrolling, child's adjustment to and readiness for pre-school, sources of advice and information;
• main carer's physical and emotional health - including general health, long-standing illness, depression and stress, couple relationships.

Target population: Young children resident in Scotland.

Response rate: In the first year (2005/06), 80% of families eligible to take part in the original birth cohort responded (Table 1). Response rates for all subsequent sweeps are also shown, as a percentage of all cases eligible to take part at that sweep, and as a percentage of all Sweep 1 cases.

Table 1. GUS Birth Cohort 1 response rates

The response rate of the Child Cohort was 79% at Sweep 1 with 77% of the original sweep responding at the last sweep in 2008/09. The response rate of Sweep 1 of Birth Cohort 2 was 65%. The lower response rate is explained by differences in the way the Child Benefit sample was administered by HMRC and DWP between the two cohorts. When a comparable approach is used, the response rates between the 1st sweeps of both cohorts is very similar (65% versus 62%). 

Method of data collection: The main source of data is a face-to-face computer-assisted personal interview (CAPI) with the cohort child's main carer, usually the child's mother.

Smallest geographical unit reported: Scotland.

Availability of results and further information: Reports from Birth Cohort 1 Sweeps 1-10 and Birth Cohort 2 Sweep 1 of the survey are currently available from Growing Up in Scotland. The corresponding datasets are available to download from the UK Data Service.