Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The Growing Up in Scotland (GUS) study is a large-scale longitudinal social survey which follows the lives of several groups of Scottish children from infancy through childhood and adolescence, and aims to provide important new information on children and their families in Scotland. The study forms a central part of the Scottish Government's strategy for the long-term monitoring and evaluation of its policies for children, with a specific focus on the early years. Unlike other similar cohort studies, this survey has a specifically Scottish focus. A key objective of GUS is to address a significant gap in the evidence base for early years policy monitoring and evaluation. The study seeks both to describe the characteristics, circumstances and experiences of children in their early years (and their parents) in Scotland and, through its longitudinal design, to generate a better understanding of how children's start in life can shape their longer term prospects and development.Since 2005, study design and data collection have been undertaken by ScotCen Social Research with collaborations with the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships, based at the University of Edinburgh and the MRC/CSO Social and Public Health Sciences Unit over certain periods of the project. The survey design consisted of recruiting an initial total of 8,000 parents in 2005, comprising two cohorts of children (5,000 from birth, 3,000 from age two years and ten months), and then interviewing parents annually until their child reached age five years ten months. Further fieldwork was undertaken with the birth cohort when the children were around eight, ten, twelve and fourteen years old.  A boost sample of 500 children from predominantly high deprivation areas was added to the cohort as part of the age 12 fieldwork.Data is collected via an in-home, face-to-face interview with self-complete sections. Fieldwork for sweep 10 was disrupted due to the COVID pandemic. As a result, the final portion of the data was collected via web and telephone questionnaires.Further information about the survey may be found on the Growing Up in Scotland website.

Latest Edition Information For the twentieth edition (August 2023), the Birth Cohort 1 Sweep 7, Sweep 9 and Sweep 10 data files have been updated to correct minor errors. The Sweep 7 data documentation has also been amended.

Main Topics:

Interviews with the cohort child's main carer have collected information about a range of issues including: characteristics and circumstances of children and their families in Scotland - including contact with non-resident parentshousing, neighbourhood and community - including accommodation characteristics, ownership of material goods, moving home, availability, use and assessment of local facilities, satisfaction with and child-friendliness of local area, feelings of safety, involvement in local groupsfood and eating - including eating habits, main meals, types of food eaten, sources of advice on children’s diets/healthy eatingactivities with others - including participation in educational, social or recreational activities at home and elsewhere, and visits to places or events, watching TV and videos, child's involvement in physical activitychild health and development - including general health, longstanding and acute illness, health service contact, use of Accident and Emergency, hospital admissions, anthropometric measurements, cognitive, physical and behavioural development indicators and assessments, immunisations, short-term illness, problems in the last 3 monthsparenting styles and responsibilities - including awareness, use and appraisal of parenting techniques, parent-child activities, household division of labour, amount of children's media in household, parent-child attachmentparental support - including informal social networks, access to informal support, attendance at groups and classes, attitudes towards and use of formal support services, contact with and support from child's grandparents, access to informal support, attendance at groups and classes, use of formal support services, attitudes to help-seeking and formal supportearly learning and childcare and work-life balance - including details of childcare used, cost, choice, employers' family friendly policies, and attitudes to work-life balanceearly experiences of primary and secondary school - including choice and enrolment at primary school, child’s adjustment and readiness, sources of advice and information, parental involvement in school events, child's support needs, educational aspirations, travel to and from school, breakfast and after-school clubs, homework, attitudes to schooling and education parental physical and emotional health - including general health, long-standing illness, depression and stress, mental and physical well-being, couple relationships, parental alcohol, tobacco and drug usechild, parent and family social networks - including parental family and friendship networksparental employment, income and education - including index of material deprivation Information obtained from the child from ages 8 to 14 include: experience of and attitudes towards schoolrelationships with parents, siblings and peersphysical and mental health and wellbeing smoking, drinking and drug useanti-social behavioursocial media and online activityaspirationsgender identity and sexual orientation Objective measurements have also been taken of the child's height and weight and the child's cognitive ability. Cognitive assessments at ages 3 and 5 were carried out using the British Ability Scales 2nd Edition 'Picture Similarities' and 'Naming Vocabulary' assessments.  At ages 10, 12 and 14, the 'Listening Comprehension' subtest of the Weschler Individual Achievement Tests, 2nd Edition (WIAT-II) was used. A summary topic guide covering all sweeps is available from the study website.

Multi-stage stratified random sample

Face-to-face interview

Self-administered questionnaire

Physical measurements and tests