Growing Up in Ireland (GUI) is the national longitudinal study of children that was established by the Irish Government in 2006. It is funded by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY). The survey was first carried out by researchers led by Trinity College Dublin and the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). Since 2023 the survey has been managed and overseen by DCEDIY and the Central Statistics Office (CSO). GUI was established to provide evidence for the creation of effective and responsive policies and services for children and families in Ireland. We study the lives of children in Ireland, to understand the factors that help or hinder development, and importantly, get children’s views and opinions on their lives as they grow up. It is a study of children, with children, for children.
The CSO is Ireland’s national statistics office, and our purpose is to impartially gather, analyse, and publish statistics and insights about Ireland, our people, our society, and our economy. We gather and collect data under the Statistics Act, 1993 to provide official statistics that are independently produced and verified and can be used to inform decision making across all aspects of our society. The CSO conducts household and business surveys throughout the year, as well as the census, and no individual, household, or enterprise can be identified from the data we publish. The CSO has been trusted for 75 years and counting to provide accurate and verifiable statistics about Irish life and society. Protecting data confidentiality is at the heart of everything we do. You can learn more about why you trust the CSO on the Trust & Transparency section of our website..
We can’t survey all nine-month-old babies and their families, so we are asking a random sample of around 15-16,000 babies from all over the country to take part. Experiences in infancy are very important in shaping a child’s future, and so beginning the survey when the baby is this age allows us to track the impact of their early experiences through childhood and beyond.
It is important that everyone sampled takes part. The facts we get directly from you through GUI provide essential data on child development and help policy makers when making decisions that impact the lives of children and young people in Ireland. Some policy decisions that GUI data has helped inform include medical card usage and population health planning (Department of Health), children’s use of mobile phones and learning (Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications), the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme (Department of Education), and strategic planning for children’s cultural participation (Arts Council).
The GUI has previously conducted surveys with young people and their families at different ages – a group of children who were aged nine in 2007/2008 (Cohort ‘98), and a group of children who were aged nine months in 2008/2009 (Cohort ‘08). While we are still learning a huge amount from the ongoing data collection with these two cohorts, it has been 16 years since GUI last started a new baby cohort. There have been significant social, economic and policy changes in Ireland since that time. The GUI Cohort ’24 will provide essential data on the extent to which these changes affect child development, inform the creation of responsive, child-focused policies, and inform the potential delivery of services for children and their families in Ireland.
Confidentiality is a core value of the CSO. All CSO staff are designated as Officers of Statistics under Section 20(a) of the Statistics Act, 1993. This means every staff member is legally bound to uphold the confidentiality of the data they have access to. The CSO does not share any identifiable personal data with any third party. Your data and confidentiality are protected by law. In limited cases, data is shared with approved researchers under strict conditions in a way where identities are protected. We only use your data for statistical purposes. That means we remove all identifying information such as the baby’s name and your specific address. We use broad information such as the general area where you live e.g., Dublin, baby’s sex, and then group up (aggregate) this data so nobody is identifiable from the data provided.
As well as the strict legal protections in the Statistics Act, 1993, the CSO must ensure compliance with the data protection requirements in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act, 2018. The Data Protection Transparency Notice for the survey can be accessed on our website.
The CSO will publish the results on our website and on our social media channels. We will use percentages and trends to tell the story behind the GUI survey. We will outline in broad terms the type of families who responded and, as the children grow up and we collect more data, the different ways in which they are developing.
Under the Statistics Act, 1993, CSO may grant access to non-aggregated data files under strict conditions, for scientific and statistical purposes only. Registered researchers can therefore access these files to undertake academic and policy-related research which is then published at aggregate level.
GUI draws from many skills and areas of expertise to consider how a child grows up. When the child is an infant or toddler, the questions will focus on family background, health, the neighbourhood, and the economic context the child is growing up in. As the child grows up and finds their own voice, the questions will begin to cover their social and emotional development, education, as well as their own thoughts and feelings.
Our interviewers will schedule the survey at a time that is convenient for you and your baby. This first wave of data collection should take about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
The CSO collects contact details from a wide range of sources, both from statistical data sources collected by Government agencies or departments (known as administrative data) made available to the CSO under the Statistics Act, 1993, and from our social surveys. All data collected and used by the CSO is stored securely and only used for producing national statistics. For identifying potential participants in GUI Cohort ’24, we used data from administrative records of the Department of Social Protection.
We send out letters to families to let them know they have been randomly selected to take part in GUI. Interviewers will call to your home to complete the interview with you at a time that suits. Everyone selected to take part in GUI is chosen at random. People can be invited to take part by letter or through one of our interview teams. This means someone might call to your house to ask you to take part. We also may send you a text message. We provide details on our letters of how you can contact us if you have questions. We will ring you back if we are unable to answer the call outside of office hours if you leave a voicemail.
Learn about our data and confidentiality safeguards, and the steps we take to produce statistics that can be trusted by all.