Millennium Cohort Study

Overview

The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) follows the lives of a sample of nearly 19,000 babies born between 1 September 2000 and 31 August 2001 in England and Wales, and between 22 November 2000 and 11 January 2002 in Scotland and Northern Ireland. The sample design allowed for disproportionate representation of families living in areas of child poverty, in the smaller countries of the UK and in areas with high ethnic minority populations in England.

The study's broad objective is to create a new multi-purpose longitudinal dataset, describing the diversity of backgrounds from which children born in the new century are setting out in life.

The MCS is housed at the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS), which is an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Resource Centre, based at the Institute of Education, University of London. The study is funded by the ESRC and a consortium of Government Departments led by the Office of National Statistics.

Four survey sweeps have now been completed, providing information collected from parents when the children were aged nine months, and three, five and seven years of age, respectively. The first survey recorded the circumstances of pregnancy and birth, as well as those of the all-important early months of life, and the social and economic background of the family into which the children were born. The main objectives of subsequent surveys were to chart continuity and change in the child's family and parenting environment, to assess key aspects of the child's physical, cognitive, social and emotional development and to maximise longitudinal potential for predicting and explaining future development.

Information has been obtained primarily through interviewing parents. However, during Survey 3, information was also collected from schools on the five-year old child's first full year, either from administrative records in England or through a survey of teachers in the Celtic countries. The most recent survey (Survey 4), undertaken throughout 2008, included cognitive assessments and physical measurements of the cohort children and, for the first time, a self-completion questionnaire for the seven-year olds to answer themselves. The survey also included a postal survey of class teachers and physical activity monitoring.

Useful links

For further information, additional resources, and news and events, users are advised to visit the MCS web pages of the CLS and the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS):

Data availability

Users registered with the UK Data Archive/Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) have access to the MCS datasets via the instant download service or can analyse, visualise, subset and download selected data from the MCS via the online Nesstar software tool:

The MCS data currently available via ESDS are Surveys 1 to 3, a sub-study of mothers who received assisted fertility treatment, birth registration/maternity hospital episode data, and hospital of birth data (under Special Licence). Also under Special Licence are Ward, Census Lower Super Output Area (LSOA) and Output Area (OA) geographical identifiers.

Secure Data Service access

The SDS is currently in negotiation to provide remote secure access to nominated users to a dataset of MCS data which has been augmented with the addition of data linked from the Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC). Previously, users would have had to travel onsite to the Centre for Longitudinal Studies in London to access these data.