THE DESIGN AND CONDUCT OF THE 1999-2000 SURVEYS OF THE NATIONAL CHILD DEVELOPMENT STUDY AND THE 1970 BRITISH COHORT STUDY

(2000) - John Bynner, Neville Butler, Elsa Ferri, Peter Shepherd

Journal: CLS Cohort Studies
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Tags:: #paper #NCDS #BCS
Cite Key:: [@Bynner2000a]

Abstract

Britain is widely recognised as a world leader in the production of longitudinal research resources and their use in the analysis of developmental and life course processes. This Working Paper contains the first account of the design, development and conduct of a new round of data collection for two of Britain’s three national longitudinal birth cohort studies, the National Child Development Study (1958 cohort) and the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70). The National Child Development Study (NCDS) began as a Perinatal Mortality Survey to examine the social and obstetric factors associated with stillbirth and infant mortality among the 17,000+ babies born in Britain in the week 3-9 March 1958 (Butler and Bonham, 1963)1. Follow-up surveys of the whole cohort were carried out at ages 7, 11, 16, 23, and, most recently, in 1991 at the age of 33 (eg Davie, Butler and Goldstein, 1972; Fogelman, 1983; Ferri, 1993)2. At that time, a special study was also undertaken of the children of one third of the cohort members, including assessments of the behavioural and cognitive development of approximately 5000 children. There have also been surveys of subsamples of the cohort, the most recent at age 37, when information was collected on the basic skills difficulties of a representative 10 per cent sample (Bynner and Parsons, 1997)3. The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) follows a similar pattern to NCDS, taking as its subjects all 17,000+ British births in the week 5-11 April 1970, and, in the initial survey, providing insight into contemporary patterns of obstetric and neonatal care (Chamberlain et al, 1973, 1975)4. Subsequently, full sample surveys took place at ages 5, 10, 16 and 26 (eg Butler, Golding and Howlett, 1986; Osborne, Butler and Morris, 1984; Bynner, Ferri and Shepherd, 1997)5. As in NCDS, sub-samples have been studied at various ages: for example, at age 21, paralleling the NCDS survey at 37, a 10 per cent representative sample was assessed for basic skills difficulties (Ekinsmyth and Bynner, 1994; Bynner and Steedman, 1995)6.

Notes

“Characterising the long-term processes involved is the idea of ‘accumulated risk’, with its counterpart the acquisition of ‘protective resources8. Accumulated risk may lead to marginalisation in relation to employment, community, family life and citizenship, the main consequence of which is social exclusion.9 Adverse outcomes in adulthood, such as those concerned with education problems or ill health, can frequently be traced back to disadvantaged conditions earlier on. Such conditions may accompany birth and the early years of life, but they may also arise from later experiences and personal choices.” (Bynner et al., 2000, p. 6)