Working papers

The aim of this scoping review is to identify research methodologies or tools that could
potentially be used to enhance large-scale surveys, and in particular the CLS cohort studies. This review addresses the following research questions: How is social media data used in social research? What are the opportunities and challenges of using social media data? What are the possibilities for enhancing large-scale surveys by linking to social media data?

While adult children with siblings can share caring for older parents, adult only children face this responsibility alone. Yet, despite the extensive literature on informal caregiving more generally, research on only children’s parent-care is limited. Given increased longevity and reliance on informal caregiving, as well as an increase in one-child families, there is a need to further investigate only children’s caregiving.  This paper investigates whether and how adult only children’s parent-care differs from those with siblings, how sibling composition intersects with gender and how it relates to wellbeing. Using data from three large scale British birth cohorts we analyse parent-care at different ages: 38 and 42 (born 1970), 50 and 55 (born 1958), and 63 (born 1946). Results show that only children are more likely to provide parent-care, with differences greater at later ages. Provision is gendered, and the sibling group composition matters for involvement. While caring is related to wellbeing, we found no evidence that this differs between only children and those with siblings.

A sequential mixed mode data collection, online-to-telephone, was introduced into the National Child Development Study for the first time at the study’s age 55 sweep in 2013. The study included a small experiment, whereby a randomised subset of study members was allocated to a single mode, telephone-only interview, in order to test for the presence of mode effects on participation and measurement. Relative to telephone-only, the offer of the web increased overall participation rates by 5.0 percentage points (82.8% vs. 77.8%, 95% confidence interval 2.7% to 7.3%). Differences attributable to mode of interview were detected in levels of item non-response and response values for a limited number of questions.

This paper addresses the question of whether attending a private school (both at primary and secondary stages) affects voting behaviour and political attitudes in adulthood. The analysis is based upon the British Cohort Study, a nationally representative cohort of children born in one week in April 1970 at age 42 years.

This paper describes the collection of saliva samples from cohort members and their biological parents in the Millennium Cohort Study. It analyses response rates, predictors of response, and details the DNA extraction, genotyping and imputation procedures performed on the data.

This paper reviews the literature on the effects of incentives in longitudinal studies.

This report looks at what major longitudinal studies have already done in terms of collecting data using new technologies and innovative methods, and explores the methodological challenges surrounding innovative data collection.

This report gives an overview of the most relevant literature and evidence on the use mixed-mode involving web in longitudinal surveys.

This report sets out the rationale and sampling design options for a new UK birth cohort study, incorporating an accelerated longitudinal design.

This paper presents a systematic data-driven approach to identify predictors of non-response at wave 8 (age 25-26 years) in Next Steps and demonstrates that including such variables in analyses with principled methods can reduce bias due to missing data.