Growing Up in Ireland - the National Longitudinal Study of Children is a landmark study of children and youth which has been running since 2006. The objectives of the study are outlined in a separate publication (Greene et al. 2010) but can be summarised as seeking to collect data on what it means to grow up a child in Ireland, with a view to informing policy on what both helps and hinders development. A two cohort, cross-sequential longitudinal design was adopted and began with one cohort (the Infant Cohort) of 11,134 infants (aged 9 months) and a second cohort (the Child Cohort) of 8,568 9-year olds. Being longitudinal in nature, the same children are followed over time. The families of the Infant Cohort have been interviewed when the children were 9 months, 3 years and subsequently 5 years of age, while the Child Cohort and their parents/guardians were interviewed at 9, 13 and 17/18 years of age. This wave of data concerns a postal survey of the Primary Caregivers of the children in the Infant Cohort when those children were 7/8 years old.

The target population for sampling at Wave 4 was made up of the children and families who participated in Wave 2 and/or Wave 3, as well as most of those who participated at Wave 1 but refused or otherwise did not participate at one or both of the next waves due to family circumstances at that time (e.g. due to the birth of a new baby or temporary absence from the country during the fieldwork period). Families who had moved abroad, moved within Ireland with no forwarding address, or had requested at Wave 2 or Wave 3 to be removed from the study, were not issued at Wave 4. Thus the Wave 4 sample had four components: those children and families who participated in all three earlier waves of the study; those who had participated only in Wave 1; those that participated in Waves 1 and 2; and those children and families who had participated in Waves 1 and 3. Just over 95 per cent of the families at Wave 4 had participated in all previous waves, while approximately 1 per cent had participated at Wave 1 but not at Wave 2 or 3. Two per cent of the Wave 4 study sample completed all except Wave 2, and a final 2 per cent completed all but Wave 3.

Self-administered questionnaire: Paper