Access the survey data 
Access the technical reports 
Pasco Fearon
UCL Chair in Developmental Psychopathology and Co-Director of Generation New Era
Email: p.fearon@ucl.ac.uk
On this page:
The Children of the 2020s study is a nationally representative birth cohort study of 8,500 babies born in England at the start of the 2020s.
It has been commissioned by the Department for Education to follow the children from age nine months to five years. The study is led by UCL (Psychology and Language Sciences and CLS), in partnership with Ipsos, the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Birkbeck, and the University of London.
If your child is taking part in the study, please visit the Children of the 2020s website.
The study sample was drawn from HMRC Child Benefit records and includes parents with babies born in September, October, and November 2021. Approximately 8,500 families were invited to take part with boosted representation from families in the lowest quintile of disadvantage.
The first wave of data collection took place when the cohort child was nine months old (Wave 1). Subsequent surveys are taking place annually.
Data collection includes assessments of:
The Age 9 Months and Age 3 Sweeps were carried out face-to-face. The sweeps at ages 2, 4 and 5 will be administered using a sequential mixed mode design with online and telephone surveys.
The study includes ongoing linkages to both parent and baby education and health records.
Alongside the main surveys and linkages, the study will collect additional data using an innovative smartphone app called BabySteps. BabySteps will enable us to capture rich developmental and home environment measures between study sweeps at low cost. Measures will include a combination of short questionnaires and video/audio recordings.
Access the survey data
To use the data, researchers will need to become an accredited researcher, and then apply for an accredited research project.
Data from Wave 1 of the Children of the 2020s study are available via the ONS Secure Research Service.
Access the technical reports
The Wave 1 Technical Report is available from the Department for Education website.
Pasco Fearon
UCL Chair in Developmental Psychopathology and Co-Director of Generation New Era
Email: p.fearon@ucl.ac.uk
Pasco Fearon is a leading expert in early child development, specialising in early parenting, attachment, parental mental health and the development of children's emotional and behavioural problems. Pasco is a Clinical Psychologist and Professor at the University of Cambridge and UCL. He is Director of the Centre for Child, Adolescent and Family Research at the University of Cambridge and the Developmental Neuroscience Unit at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families (AFNCCF). He has extensive expertise in longitudinal research in the infancy and early development period, and in the measurement of the home environment and children's cognitive and emotional development. Pasco is Director of the national Children of the 2020s birth cohort study and Co-Director of Generation New Era.
Lisa Calderwood
Professor of Survey Research, Managing Director of CLS, Director of GUIDE and Co-Director of Generation New Era
Alissa Goodman
Professor of Economics, Director of CLS and Co-Director of Generation New Era
Centre for Longitudinal Studies
UCL Social Research Institute
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL
Email: clsdata@ucl.ac.uk
