Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) began in 1970 when data were collected about the births and families of babies born in the United Kingdom in one particular week in 1970. Since then, there have been nine further full data collection exercises in order to monitor the cohort members' health, education, social and economic circumstances. These took place when respondents were aged 5 in 1975, aged 10 in 1980, aged 16 in 1986, aged 26 in 1996, aged 30 in 1999-2000 (SN 5558), aged 34 in 2004-2005, aged 42 in 2012 and aged 46 in 2016-18. A range of sub-studies has also been conducted, including SN 4715, 1970 British Cohort Study: Age 21 Sample Survey, 1992 and SN 7064, 1970 British Cohort Study: Age 10, Sweep 3 Special Needs Survey, 1980Further information about the BCS70 and may be found on the Centre for Longitudinal Studies website. As well as BCS70, the CLS now also conducts the NCDS series.
The 1970 British Cohort Study: Age 21 Sample Survey, 1992 was the fourth sample follow-up of the 1970 BCS cohort. It focused principally on: youth training; full-time education; post-school vocational qualifications; unemployment; current or most recent employment; literacy and numeracy.
Main Topics:
The survey comprised four sections: the main interview, a set of literacy and numeracy assessments and two self-completion questionnaires ('Your Life Since 1986' and 'Your Views'). The interview covered qualifications, training, current employment, unemployment, reading and writing behaviour, literacy and numeracy self-appraisal, household composition, relationships, children, housing, income and health. The literacy and numeracy assessments comprised a series of 17 tasks using showcards, to assess reading, writing, comprehension and simple mathematical skills. Self-completion: the 'Your Life Since 1986' questionnaire covered employment and education histories since 1986, and 'Your Views' gathered information on attitudes to employment, education, literacy, numeracy, self-efficacy, health and opinion of respondent's life so far. Standard Measures Malaise Inventory: a measure for the assessment of psychiatric morbidity, developed by Rutter and others at the Institute of Psychiatry from the Cornell Medical index. Full references: Rutter, M., Tizard, J. and Whitemore, K. (1970) Education, health and behaviour, London. Rodgers, B. et al (1999) 'Validity of the Malaise Inventory in general population samples' Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, vol.34, pp.333-341.
One-stage cluster sample
a simple random sample of the BCS70 cohort
Face-to-face interview
Telephone interview
Self-completion
Educational measurements
Initial non-respondents were contacted by telephone
