News and opinion

Welcome to our news and blogs section. Here you’ll find the latest developments and insights from across our longitudinal studies.

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News

Men’s overconfidence helps them reach top jobs

24 April 2023

Men are 34% more likely than women to be employed in top jobs at age 42 with overconfidence explaining up to 11% of the gender gap, on average, for full-time workers.

News

Inequalities in early child development remained stubbornly high through the 2010s

23 June 2022

Inequalities in the early cognitive, social and emotional development of children in the UK, which are so important in shaping later life outcomes, have changed little between those born in the early 2000s and those born in the early 2010s. Researchers from the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS) and the Institute for Fiscal Studies […]

News

Over a third of adults have multiple health problems in midlife

28 July 2021

More than one in three British adults are suffering from two or more chronic health conditions in middle age, such as recurrent back problems, mental ill-health, high blood pressure, diabetes, and high-risk drinking, according to UCL researchers.

News

Children with behavioural problems at age five may need extra literacy support at school

21 July 2021

Children with severe conduct and hyperactivity problems at school entrance tend to gain lower scores in vocabulary tests during adolescence, according to a new study.

50 stories

Age 42 Sweep – Vocabulary task

28 January 2021

During the Age 42 Sweep, study participants were asked to repeat a vocabulary assessment they had previously taken in 1986, at age 16.

50 stories

Important discoveries from the 1970 British Cohort Study – Social mobility

19 November 2020

Celebrating 50 years of the 1970 British Cohort Study – BCS70 has been one of the leading sources of evidence on social mobility, informing a series of impassioned academic debates on this topic.

Reading for pleasure and children’s cognitive development

6 November 2020

Research using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) has revealed how reading for pleasure can help children excel in English and maths. It has also shown that good reading habits in childhood have a significant longer term impact on people’s vocabulary, with the benefits being evident even 30 years later.

50 stories

Important discoveries from the 1970 British Cohort Study – Age 16 Sweep

3 September 2020

Celebrating 50 years of the 1970 British Cohort Study – Cohort members who had often read for pleasure made more progress in English, but also in maths, between the ages of 10 and 16, compared to those who had rarely read.

50 stories

1970 British Cohort Study Age 16 Sweep – Dietary diaries

27 August 2020

Celebrating 50 years of the 1970 British Cohort Study – During the Age 16 Sweep study members were given a 4-day dietary diary to complete. Analysed alongside dietary data from later sweeps, this information may help us to understand adult eating patterns, and health outcomes such as obesity and diabetes.

News

Economic upheaval of 1980s linked to criminal behaviour among Generation X

31 March 2020

Members of Generation X who lived in Britain’s declining industrial heartlands in the 1980s were more likely to play truant during their school years and to be involved in crime as adults, compared to those who grew up in more advantaged areas.

News

Older fathers now tend to be healthiest in middle age, research finds

2 October 2019

Over the years, men who waited until their mid-20s to have their first child tended to report the best health in middle age, compared to those who started a family earlier. But, more recently, those who delayed fatherhood until their mid-30s appeared to be the healthiest in midlife.

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