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 project seeks to further our understanding of what it means to be a child or young person growing up in modern Ireland, with a view to informing policy on what both helps and hinders development. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) requested that the Growing Up in Ireland Study Team develop a survey capturing the experiences of the Growing Up in Ireland Cohorts during the pandemic in 2020 with a view to informing longitudinal analysis of the impact of variations in their experiences on young people’s outcomes. The web survey was hosted by the Central Statistics Office. The sample for the Covid-19 Survey was drawn from both Growing Up in Ireland Cohorts. It consisted of all of those who had participated in the first wave of the study and who were still eligible for contact.

For Cohort ’08 the original wave 1 sample at 9 months was selected from the Child Benefit Register, using a simple systematic selection procedure based on a random start and constant sampling fraction. For Cohort ’98 the original wave 2 sample at 9 years was selected using a two-stage sample design. First a random sample of Primary Schools was recruited, and then a random sample of 9-year-old children was selected from within the schools. The sample for the Covid-19 web survey was based on all the original sample less those that have deceased, moved abroad, or who had requested to be removed from the sample.

Self-administered questionnaire: Web-based