Longitudinal and Life Course Studies (E-Journal)
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Understanding Society: design overview
Get PDFUnderstanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, builds on the success of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS). This paper describes some of the key elements of the design and conduct of the study and suggests how Understanding Society is distinctive as a longitudinal survey. Its large sample size offers new opportunities to study sub-groups that may be too small for separate analysis on other studies. The new content included in Understanding Society, not least the bio-measures, provides exciting prospects for interdisciplinary research across the social and medical sciences. The Innovation Panel is already proving to be an invaluable resource for research in longitudinal survey methodology. Finally, the inclusion of the BHPS sample within Understanding Society enables this long running panel to continue into the future, opening up inter-generational research and the opportunity to look at very long-term trajectories of change. This paper also describes the four sample components: the general population sample, ethnic minority boost sample, the Innovation Panel, and participants from the BHPS. Each component has a multistage sample designs, mostly with stratification and clustering. A complex weighting strategy is being developed to support varied analyses. This overview also describes the instruments, methods of data collection, and the timetable for data collection. A summary of the survey content’s is provided. With the data becoming available the user community is beginning to benefit from this investment in longitudinal studies
Family factors, bullying victimisation and wellbeing in adolescents
Get PDFBullying victimisation during adolescence has been found to be associated with a range of individual factors. In contrast, family factors have been poorly investigated or findings have been contradictory. Even less is known about factors related to victimisation in the home by siblings. A range of family factors and their relationship to bullying victimisation in school and at home was investigated in 2,163 adolescents 10-15 years old within the Understanding Society sample. Approximately 12% were victims of bullying in school overall, 4.8% of direct and 10% of relational bullying. In contrast, sibling bullying was widespread with half of all children with siblings involved in bullying each other. In particular bully/victims at home and those victimized at school were at increased risk for behaviour problems in the clinical range and were significantly less happy. Sibling bullying was found to be related to sibling composition, in particular the number of siblings and presence of brothers and to less or negative parental involvement, while school bullying was more frequent in those growing up in material deprivation at home and who were bullied by their siblings. Strengthening families and parenting skills and increasing sibling support may reduce bullying in school and increase wellbeing
The socio-economic gradient in early child outcomes: evidence from the Millennium Cohort Study
Get PDFThis paper shows that there are large differences in cognitive development between children from rich and poor backgrounds at the age of 3, and that this gap widens by the age of 5. Children from poor backgrounds also face much less advantageous "early childhood caring environments" than children from better off families. For example we identify differences in poor children's and their mothers' health and well-being (e.g. birth-weight, breast-feeding, and maternal depression); family interactions (e.g. mother child closeness); the home learning environment (e.g. reading regularly to the child); parenting styles and rules (e.g. regular bed-times and meal-times), and experiences of childcare by ages 3 and 5. Differences in the home learning environment, particularly at the age of 3 have an important role to play in explaining why children from poorer backgrounds have lower test scores than children from better off families. However, a much larger proportion of the gap remains unexplained, or appears directly related to other aspects of family background (such as mothers' age, and family size) that are not mediated through the early childhood caring environment
Proxy interviews and bias in cognition measures due to non-response in longitudinal studies: a comparison of HRS and ELSA
No full textCognitive impairment is an important topic for longitudinal studies of aging, and one that directly affects ability to participate. We study bias in measured cognition due to non-response in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA). The much greater use of proxy interviews for impaired respondents in the HRS virtually eliminates attrition bias in measured cognition, whereas there is a noticeable bias in ELSA where proxies are infrequently used. Using Medicare claims data for the HRS we are able to compare cognitive impairment among dropouts post-attrition with that for continuing participants. There again we see the use of proxy interviews virtually eliminates a bias that would otherwise appear
Guest Editorial: the origins of Understanding Society
Get PDFGuest Editorial for the Special Section of LLCS
Attrition and health in ageing studies: evidence from ELSA and HRS
Get PDFThis paper investigates the characteristics associated with attrition in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), with a particular focus on whether attrition is systematically related to health outcomes and socioeconomic status. We have three main results. Firstly, raw attrition is greater in ELSA than in HRS but the potential survey-based explanations for this that we are able to consider do not, taken together, appear to explain the extent of this difference. Second, these differential attrition rates do not change the core conclusions regarding comparisons between the two countries of health and socioeconomic status. Finally, very few observable characteristics predict attrition in either study among those in their seventies. In the group aged 55-64, wealth appears to predict attrition in the U.S. (but not in England), and low education predicts attrition in England (but not the U.S.). Since the more serious attrition problem exists in ELSA, we conduct additional analysis of attrition in that survey. We find that respondents' level of numeracy strongly predicts attrition, but this does not account for the education gradient in attrition in ELSA
Understanding sleep among couples: gender and the social patterning of sleep maintenance among younger and older couples
Get PDF Sleep, which is vital for health and wellbeing, is influenced by a complex array of (neuro)biological and social factors. Previous research has suggested that these factors vary across the life course, as well as being affected by transitions, such as parenthood, care-giving and widowhood. This research has also suggested that many of these transitions have a greater affect on women’s sleep. Yet much of this research has focused on women and one-sided reports of partner behaviours. This paper draws on data from Wave 1 of the Understanding Society Survey to examine gender differences in sleep maintenance within younger and older heterosexual couples. Data were collected in 2009 from a representative sample of households in Britain with a response rate of 59%. Sleep maintenance, namely waking on 3 or more nights per week, was included in a self-completion module. A series of logistic regression models are run using sleep maintenance as a dependent variable; i) a two level model for couples where the male is aged 50 or less (n=2452 couples); ii) a two level model for older couples where the male is aged above 50 (n=1972 couples); iii) bivariate models which allow for odds to be calculated separately for male and female partners. Results from the couple level models illustrate how both younger and older women have increased odds of difficulties with sleep maintenance (as compared to their male partners). Poor sleep maintenance is also associated with poor health, own unemployment, dissatisfaction with income, having had a previous cohabiting relationship and having younger children for both men and women. Reports by the husband of frequency of coughing/snoring at night is significantly associated with their wives’ sleep maintenance among younger couples and vice versa; but among older couples there is only a significant association of husband’s snoring on wife’s sleep. Whilst the current analysis is cross-sectional, further understanding of the dynamic relationships of sleep will be revealed through longitudinal analysis as Understanding Society moves through future waves
