Our studies
Here you can search our series of working papers, dating back to 1983. These papers use data from our four cohort studies and cover a wide range of topics, from social inequalities and mobility, to physical health, education and cognitive development. Other papers in the series seek to improve the practice of longitudinal research. At the present time, we are only able to accept papers if at least one author is a member of the CLS research team. Some of the working papers below will subsequently have been published in peer-reviewed journals.
For more information about our working papers series, please email us at clsworkingpapers@ucl.ac.uk.
Peter Shepherd summarises the factors affecting the financial circumstances of respondents at the age 23 sweep of the National Child Development Study, including gender differences, full-time and part-time work, self-employment, and the effect of dependent children.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, young adult, job, earnings, savings, benefits, finance, income, gender pay gap, self-employment
Joan Payne explores the extent to which different measures of the experience of unemployment between 16 and 23 tend to identify respondent with different characteristics.
The nine measures of unemployment defined in Joan Payne’s earlier Working Paper (CLS WP 1983/16) were reduced to five, and deciles derived separately for men and women.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, employment, job, career, unemployment, time-series, gender gap.
Richard Ives analyses the careers advice reported by those aged 23 in the 1981 follow-up of the National Child Development Study.
Less than half of respondents reported having received any careers advice by age 23, though at age 16 a larger proportion had been reported by their parents or teachers as having received career advice.
Those leaving school early and those who were less well qualified reported having received the least careers advice.
Advice from teachers was considered influential by 20% of respondents. Those in Scotland reported less careers advice than those in England and Wales.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, young adult, advice, career, employment, job.
Lois Cook analyses the reasons for not completing an apprenticeship among respondents at the age 23 sweep of the National Child Development Study.
Nearly 1,000 cohort members (about a third of those who started an apprenticeship) gave up before it was completed. A higher proportion of women than men gave up. The propensity to give up was not linked to the trade of apprenticeship, but those who gave up were not earing noticeably less at 23 than those who remained. Those living in the North were more likely to have finished their apprenticeships.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, young adult, career, apprentice, job, drop out.
Lois Cook examines the definition of the term ‘apprenticeship’ and the characteristics of those who had undertaken them within the NCDS cohort study at age 23.
Most of those who defined themselves as having been an apprentice started their first job before the age of 18. Women were very under-represented within this type of training, and those women who were apprentices were within a very narrow band of occupations, and were less likely to obtain qualifications.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, apprentice, learning a trade, skills, work, young adult; gender divide.
Joan Payne describes the derivation of summary measures of employment, unemployment and economic activity, outlines problems in the way data were collected, and points out what needs to happen in future to produce better time-series information.
Difficulties arise from the incompleteness of the employment histories, especially for the 15.5% of the cohort who have had more than four jobs.
This introduces a bias against minimum-age school leavers, frequent job-changers and women.
One consequence is that there is no single time-base which is fully appropriate as a denominator to calculate percentage of time unemployed or employed. A data structure is recommended which orders events in a single time sequence, describing the main economic activity in each month.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, work history, unemployment, time series, work, young adult.
Richard Ives examines the extent of voluntary activity within the NCDS cohort study at age 23.
This was defined as in the General Household Survey: work for which people were not paid, which was of service to others apart from their immediate family. Almost a quarter of the sample reported having done some voluntary activity within the last year, but only 6% within the last month.
People who claimed allegiance to a religious persuasion were no more likely than others to do voluntary work, unless they actually attended church or religious meetings. Readers of ‘quality’ newspapers were more likely to do voluntary work than tabloid readers.
The most common activity was fundraising, followed by practical help to individuals or groups.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, volunteer, voluntary activity, unpaid work, young adult.
Christine Such looks at the incidence of home ownership within the NCDS cohort study at age 23. Housing tenure very much reflected socio-economic status, with less than 30% of semi-skilled and unskilled workers being owner-occupiers, compared to 80% of professionals, employers and managers.
84% of those who were home-owners were in their first-time buy, and 94% were paying a mortgage rather than owning outright.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, housing, homeowner, owner-occupier, young adult, marriage, cohabitation.
Tony Ades looks at the characteristics of those surveyed at age 23 in the NCDS cohort study in comparison to the wider population surveyed in the 1981 UK Census.
The specific areas studies are sex, marital status, student status, economic activity and unemployment.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, Census, representativeness, young adult, sex, marital status, student status, economic activity, unemployment.
Christine Such looks at the household and housing characteristics of those surveyed at age 23 in the NCDS cohort study. 36% of respondents had either returned home or continued to live with their parents, whereas 58% had left home and set up on their own. Almost twice as many men as women were living at home with their parents.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, Census, housing, household, young adult, marriage, cohabitation.
Joan Payne looks at the characteristics of those who were self-employed at age 23 in the NCDS cohort study. 6% of those currently in employment at age 23 described themselves as self-employed. The majority worked in the service industries, but sizeable numbers worked in construction, agriculture, forestry and fishing.
Breakdowns are given by social class, SEG, KOS categories and the OPCS 1980 occ. classification system.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, self-employment, young adult, small business, social class, SES.
Dorothy Henderson looks at the characteristics of those who became parents or entered a partnership before the age of 20, comparing their characteristics with those who became parents or entered a partnership at age 20 or later. Just under a third of those who had become parents by age 23 had become parents in their teens.
Keywords: 1958 cohort study, NCDS, young parent, mother, father, teenage mum, one-parent family, young adult.
Find the latest developments and insights from across all our longitudinal studies.
Our bibliography is a searchable database of published work based on our cohort studies. Search by keyword, author, date range and journal.
Data from our studies are mainly available through the UK Data Service. We run training to support researchers who are interested in using our studies in their work.
Centre for Longitudinal Studies
UCL Social Research Institute
20 Bedford Way
London WC1H 0AL
Email: clsdata@ucl.ac.uk
