CSO Frontier Series outputs may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release.
Learn more about CSO Frontier Series outputs.
Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) is the national longitudinal study of children and young people in Ireland. It is a collaborative study between the Central Statistics Office (CSO) and the Department of Children, Disability and Equality (DCDE). The CSO is responsible for the survey itself: designing and building the survey; collecting, processing, and analysing the data, and facilitating data access to researchers and policy makers. DCDE has responsibility for the wider elements of the GUI study: engaging with policy and scientific stakeholders to gather requirements; consulting with children and young people; identifying research needs, data priorities and objectives, and promoting the use of GUI data for research and policy development. GUI is a critical instrument which facilitates policy makers and researchers to examine the factors that shape the development of children and young people in Ireland and which, through this, contributes to the setting of responsive policies and the design of services for children and families.
For Growing Up in Ireland Cohort ’08 at 13 years, the focus of the study was on child outcomes in the following three domains:
For Cohort '08 Wave 1, all children who would be 9-months old between September 2008 and April 2009 (that is, at the time of interview) were identified from the Child Benefit Register. This resulted in a total eligible population of 41,185 children, which was then pre-stratified by marital status, county of residence, nationality, and number of children in the claim. The sample was then selected using a simple systematic selection procedure based on a random start and constant sampling fraction. The completed sample of 11,134 represents just over one quarter (27%) of all births in the State over the period 01 December 2007 to 30 June 2008.
Growing Up in Ireland is a longitudinal study and follows the same children and their families across each wave. Thus, a total of 9,723 children and their families were included in the sample in Wave 6, when the respondents were aged 13 years. This sample comprised families who had participated in the face-to-face interview in Wave 5 (when the respondents were aged 9 years), as well as a small proportion of those who had not participated in Wave 5 but had participated in one of the earlier rounds of the study. No additions were made to this sample, and the only exits were due to inter-wave non-response or attrition (including emigration), or cases where the child had sadly deceased.
Data collection for Cohort ’08 Wave 6 took place between summer 2021 and summer 2022 and was carried out by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). This wave was distinct from all other main phases of fieldwork because the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020 necessitated remote, rather than face-to-face, data collection.
The figures presented are unweighted as some of the twins are not part of the original weighted sample, as such, the results presented should be interpreted with caution and are not nationally representative. In addition, due to the unequal sample size between twins and singletons comparisons are illustrative rather than empirical.
The Pianta Child-Parent Relationship Scale (CPRS) (Pianta, 1992) is a self-report instrument completed by mothers and fathers that assesses parents’ perceptions of their relationships with their sons and daughters. It is a very widely used self-report instrument and taps into aspects of the parent-child relationship. The Conflict subscale has eight statements to which participants respond on a five-point scale from ‘definitely does not apply’ to ‘definitely applies’ to their relationship with the child. The Conflict subscale measures the degree to which a parent feels that his or her relationship with a child is characterized by negativity.
The SDQ (Goodman, 1997; sdqinfo.org/a0.html) is a widely used 25-item measure to assess socio-emotional and behavioural well-being. The SDQ is appropriate for use with children from the age of 2 to 17 years. There are different versions for parents, youth, and teachers. Cohort ’08 of Growing Up in Ireland has used the PCG-reported version of the SDQ at all waves beginning at the age of 3 years (including Wave 6 of the study).
The 25 items in the SDQ comprise 5 subscales of 5 items each. The subscales include:
There are four ‘difficulties’ subscales (peer problems, emotional symptoms, hyperactivity/inattention, and conduct problems) and one ‘prosocial’ subscale.
Responses are rated on a three-point scale: ‘Not true’, ‘Somewhat true’ or ‘Certainly true’ with corresponding scores between 0 and 2.
Lower scores on the emotional, conduct, hyperactivity/inattention, and peer relationship subscales of the SDQ reflect a more positive outcome whereas higher scores on the prosocial behaviour subscale represent a more positive outcome. A total difficulties score can be generated by adding the scores from the four ‘difficulties’ subscales.
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