Guide to Growing Up in Scotland
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ESDS Longitudinal provides:
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a web-based download service
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specialist user support
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training and workshops
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a range of value-added data enhancements for a number of key UK
longitudinal data collections, including Growing Up in Scotland (GUS)
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The Growing Up in Scotland (GUS) study is a large-scale longitudinal social survey
which follows the lives of groups of Scotland's children from infancy through to their
teens, and aims to provide important new information on young children and their
families in Scotland. The study forms a central part of the Scottish Government's
strategy for the long-term monitoring and evaluation of its policies for children,
with a specific focus on the early years. Unlike other similar cohort studies, this
survey has a specifically Scottish focus.
The development of the study, fieldwork and analysis
are being undertaken by the Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen) in
collaboration with the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, based at
the University of Edinburgh.
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The survey design consisted of recruiting an initial
total of 8,000 parents in 2005, compiling two cohorts of children (5,000 from birth,
3,000 from age two), and then interviewing parents annually, until their child
reaches age five. Funding has been secured for the first eight sweeps of data
collection (2005 - 2012) including the introduction of a new birth cohort in 2011.
Main topics
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The primary objective of GUS is to address a significant gap in the evidence base
for early years policy monitoring and evaluation. The data collected will also serve
wider policy research requirements for cross-sectional analysis of issues affecting
children and young people. The study seeks both to describe the characteristics,
circumstances and experiences of children in their early years (and their parents)
in Scotland 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. Interviews were conducted with the parents or main carers of babies born between
June 2004 and May 2005, and children born between June 2002 and May 2003, resident
in Scotland during 2005-2009.
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Key areas covered by the study include:
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contact with non-resident parents
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food and activity
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childcare
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child health and development
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neighbourhood
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parental work, employment and income
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parenting styles
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service use
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and informal and formal support
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At sweep 5, data collection for the study included two main elements:
- a face-to-face CAPI interview with the cohort child's main carer
- two cognitive assessments undertaken with the cohort child
Access to GUS
Users registered with the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) have access to
the GUS data via the Download/Order link on the study description page:
Users can register with ESDS at
GUS resources
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Further information, including links to reports and other publications, may be
found on the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships GUS web pages:
Users should also see
- the Scottish Centre for Social Research GUS web pages:
, and
- the Survey Question Bank web pages:
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User Documentation
The full GUS study description is available at:
ESDS user documentation for the GUS can be downloaded from the Data Catalogue
in the form of multi-volume user guides in PDF format from:
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Publications
The main published outcomes arising from this study, by the Principal
Investigators and from secondary analysis, can be found at:
www.esds.ac.uk help@esds.ac.uk
L33437 - Growing Up in Scotland
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