Sweep status | In development. |
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Dates | 2022-3 |
Age | 22 |
Respondents | Cohort members |
Data access | Plans are to make the data available via the UK Data Service in 2025 |
Description | |
Consultation timetable |
The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is a large, nationally representative birth cohort study following the lives of over 19,000 cohort members since their infancy. The study has now run for seven sweeps, at ages 9 months, 3, 5, 7, 11, 14 and 17, providing an incredibly rich picture of lives of this generation. Further detail can be found here. It has also collected data through three online COVID-19 surveys at ages 19 and 20.
The aim of the Age 22 Sweep is to provide data for research and policy on the lives of this generation at an important milestone, with the cohort on the cusp of maturation to adulthood.
The early 20s are an exceptionally dynamic period of life, traditionally characterised by five role transitions – in employment, education, partnerships, fertility and residence. The additional strain brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to be severe, striking at a time when the cohort are navigating critical transitions in education and the labour market.
A summary of content for Sweeps 1-7 is available here. The next section sets out what’s proposed to be covered in the Age 22 Sweep.
Consultation on draft questionnaires (closed 6 September 2021)
The questionnaires for the Age 22 Sweep are still under development. However, our initial drafts are available to view below. You will see that in some cases we have proposed draft question wording, and in others we have proposed fairly high level topics – these tend to be the areas that involve quite complex routingn.
You can also read a list of the topics covered here.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this consultation phase. There will be a further opportunity to comment on the content and questions included in the sweep before the questionnaires are finalised.
The Age 22 Sweep will also collect information about skills and development, including cognitive processes such as impulse control, emotion perception, short-term memory, inequity aversion, and psychosocial skills such as personality, persistence, motivation, leadership, attitudes to risk, and delayed gratification.
We are also considering the following:
Earlier consultation phases
On 25 May we held an interactive half-day online event to help shape the content of the Millennium Cohort Study Age 22 Sweep. Participants joined themed discussion sessions to explore the key topics and questions to include in the next survey. Prior to this, in February to March 2021, we invited people to send us their suggestions for the content of the sweep.