Millennium Cohort Study Sweep 3 Scotland Report published

Focusing on Scottish data, this report, published 15 December 2009 by the Scottish Government, presents findings from the third survey of the UK-wide Millennium Cohort Study (MCS3).

Focusing on Scottish data, this report, published 15 December 2009 by the Scottish Government, presents findings from the third survey of the UK-wide Millennium Cohort Study (MCS3). It compares families living in Scotland with families in the UK as a whole and with those in each of the other countries in the UK where breakdowns are available.

The survey took place mostly in 2006 when the children had reached age 5 and collected information from 15,246 families, including 1,814 from Scotland. The resultant data presents a picture of family life between 9 months and 5 years.

In many respects the findings for Scotland do not differ in a statistically significant way from those from the rest of the UK but there are some interesting exceptions. For example:

• Parents in Scotland (as in Northern Ireland) tended to engage in ‘parenting activities’ such as reading to or playing games with children more frequently than those in England and Wales.

• Fathers in Scotland were more likely than those in England and the UK as a whole to report getting their child ready for/putting their child to bed several times a week and looking after their child on their own several times a week.

• Mothers in Scotland were less likely than mothers in Northern Ireland, but more likely than mothers in Wales, to say that they smack their child when naughty at least some of the time. However, they were more likely to report that they tell their child off daily than mothers in either England or Wales.

• Children in Scotland were more likely to be cared for by their grandparent, and had higher rates of being in any kind of formal care, any kind of non-parental care, and any kind of care overall, than children living in England and in the UK as a whole.

• Scores on indicators of cognitive development for children in Scotland were higher than those for children in England or Wales on Naming Vocabulary and lower than those for children from Northern Ireland on Pattern Construction.

• Children were more likely to be reported by their parents as being in excellent health in Scotland (59%) than in England (52%) or the UK as a whole (53%).

• Although BMI values for Scotland were normal and not significantly different from the rest of the UK, the relationship between living in poverty and higher child BMI values was more marked in Scotland than in the UK as a whole.

• Mothers in Scotland were more likely than mothers in England to smoke ten or more cigarettes a day and to drink alcohol. However, fathers in Scotland were less likely to be frequent drinkers than fathers in England or Wales.

The full report, edited by Alice Sullivan and Shirley Dex, is available at:
http://207.45.125.82/x/track.asp?uid=”72&clp=2667&clt=3674&d=15/12/2009&t=www%20Scottish%20Executive%20(uk)&url=http://c.moreover.com/click/here.pl?z2403038729%26z=950244491″