Cross Cohort Research Programme

Our Cross Cohort Research Programme (CCRP) was a major initiative involving leading researchers from CLS, together with national and international collaborators.

Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the CCRP used data from our own four cohort studies, as well as other studies including the 1946 National Survey of Health and Development, to compare the lives of people across the UK.

Incorporating seven projects, the programme explored two key themes which are both central to government policy: healthy lifestyles and the transmission of advantage and disadvantage from one generation to the next.

Findings from our CCRP work have raised important issues for policymakers and practitioners. For example:

• Our work on alcohol use has challenged the supposed ‘benefits’ of moderate drinking.
• Our project on mental health has found that Generation X are more likely to experience poor mental health in mid-life than the Baby Boomers were before them.
• Our work on social mobility has shown that young people who take vocational GCSEs are less likely to stay on to do A-levels and less likely to take ‘facilitating’ A-levels favoured by the most prestigious universities.

To find out more about all seven CCRP projects, and what we have discovered so far, explore the links below:

• Alcohol use across the life course: links with health and wellbeing
• Childhood mental health trajectories and lifetime consequences: a cross-cohort programme of work
• Educational and occupational aspirations of young people: influences and outcomes
• Intergenerational influences on physical activity
• Parental wealth in childhood and its relationship with children’s development and predictors of wealth in adult life
• Parental working hours and the rising prevalence of obesity over time: a cross-cohort analysis
• Social mobility mechanisms and consequences