Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.Background:The Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is a large-scale, multi-purpose longitudinal dataset providing information about babies born at the beginning of the 21st century, their progress through life, and the families who are bringing them up, for the four countries of the United Kingdom. The original objectives of the first MCS survey, as laid down in the proposal to the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in March 2000, were:to chart the initial conditions of social, economic and health advantages and disadvantages facing children born at the start of the 21st century, capturing information that the research community of the future will requireto provide a basis for comparing patterns of development with the preceding cohorts (the National Child Development Study, held at the UK Data Archive under GN 33004, and the 1970 Birth Cohort Study, held under GN 33229)to collect information on previously neglected topics, such as fathers' involvement in children's care and developmentto focus on parents as the most immediate elements of the children's 'background', charting their experience as mothers and fathers of newborn babies in the year 2000, recording how they (and any other children in the family) adapted to the newcomer, and what their aspirations for her/his future may beto emphasise intergenerational links including those back to the parents' own childhoodto investigate the wider social ecology of the family, including social networks, civic engagement and community facilities and services, splicing in geo-coded data when availableAdditional objectives subsequently included for MCS were:to provide control cases for the national evaluation of Sure Start (a government programme intended to alleviate child poverty and social exclusion)to provide samples of adequate size to analyse and compare the smaller countries of the United Kingdom, and include disadvantaged...