GROWING UP IN SCOTLAND: THE CIRCUMSTANCES AND EXPERIENCES OF 3 YEAR OLD CHILDREN LIVING IN SCOTLAND IN 2007/08 AND 2013

Executive Summary

Introduction

Growing Up in Scotland is a large-scale longitudinal research project which is currently tracking the lives of two cohorts of Scottish children from the early years, through childhood and beyond. The study is funded by the Scottish Government.

This report draws on data provided by parents of children in Birth Cohort 1 (BC1) and Birth Cohort 2 (BC2). BC1 participants were recruited to the study in 2005/06 when the child was aged 10 months and BC2 children were recruited during 2011 when the child was aged 10 months. This report presents data collected at the age 3 interviews which took place in 2007/08 with parents of BC1 children and during 2013 with parents of BC2 children.

This report compares the circumstances and experiences of children aged 3 in Scotland in 2007/08 with those at the same age in 2013. It looks at key outcomes and behaviours such as child health; child development; child television viewing; support provided to parents and parental health and how these vary by socio-economic characteristics (equivalised household income, area deprivation, maternal age and parental level of education). This type of comparison provides an opportunity to examine whether and how these circumstances and experiences have changed for children and families in Scotland over time. Furthermore, the report explores whether the level and nature of change varies amongst children and families with different characteristics and whether there has been any progress in closing any gaps in outcomes between children from different socio-economic backgrounds.

Key findings

The key findings from each section of the report are summarised below. They focus on the experiences and outcomes of children aged 3 in 2007/08 (BC1) and 2013 (BC2).

Overview: Scottish children at age 3

• The majority of children in both cohorts were born to mothers who were aged between 20 and 39 years old. Mothers in BC2 were more likely to be in their twenties (41% for BC1, 46% for BC2) and less likely to be in their thirties (48% for BC1, 44% for BC2) or aged under 20 (8% for BC1, 6% for BC2).
• Children in BC2 were more likely than children in BC1 to be living in households with at least one adult educated to degree level (42% versus 34%). Only a small proportion of children lived in households where no parent held any qualifications.
• In both 2007/08 and 2013, approximately one in five 3-year-old children lived in single-parent households (BC1 19%, BC2 21%).
• At age 3, a lower proportion of BC2 children (67%) than BC1 children (72%) lived in a household where at least one parent worked full-time. This change appears to be due to a decrease in the proportion of partners (in most cases fathers) who worked full-time (86% in BC1 compared with 83% in BC2). By comparison, there was a slight increase in full-time employment among main carers, from 14% in BC1 to 16% in BC2.

Child health

• The vast majority of 3-year-old children living in Scotland in 2007/08 and 2013 were assessed by their main carer as having either good or very good health (BC1 94%, BC2 95%).
• For both BC1 and BC2, children from more advantaged circumstances (high household income, least deprived areas) were more likely to be reported as having good health.
• There was a statistically significant difference across the cohorts in the nature of the relationship between maternal age and child health. In BC1, children born to teenage mothers were less likely than other children to be assessed as having very good health. However, in BC2, the opposite relationship was found: children born to teenage mothers were more likely to be reported as having very good health.
• BC2 children were more likely than BC1 children to have a long-term health condition (BC1 14%, BC2 17%).
• Previous analysis of GUS data collected when BC1 were aged 10 months did not find any relationship between area deprivation and prevalence of longstanding illnesses or disabilities. By age 3, however, in both cohorts there was a relationship: children living in the most deprived areas were more likely to have a longstanding illness or disability than those living in the least deprived areas.
• BC2 children whose parents were educated to at least degree level were more likely to have had accidents than children whose parents had lower level or no qualifications. This relationship was not apparent amongst BC1 families.

Child development

• Parents were asked whether or not the cohort child was able to undertake a range of tasks representing developmental milestones by the time of the interview (shortly before the child's third birthday). 14% of children could complete all tasks, 20% were unable to complete one, 22% were unable to complete two and 44% were unable to complete three or more. There was no statistically significant difference between the cohorts.
• In both cohorts, children living in more advantaged circumstances were more likely to be reported as unable to complete three or more tasks than those living in less advantaged circumstances. The nature of the relationship between measures of advantage and achieving developmental milestones did not change between cohorts.
• The direction of the relationship is opposite to that usually observed - more advantaged children tend to be reported as having better health and development. Two tasks were found to be the main drivers of this: whether the child could put on a t-shirt alone and whether the child could get dressed alone. For both of these items, in each cohort, as income increased the likelihood of a child being able to complete the task decreased. Given the nature of these items - each involving the child getting dressed - differences here may be more a reflection of parenting practices and/or the wider context of the household rather than down to differences in the child's development.
• Cognitive ability was measured in both cohorts via two assessments: the naming vocabulary and picture similarities subtests of the British Ability Scales (BAS).
• Children in BC2 had a slightly higher vocabulary score than children in BC1. Differences in early language ability between the cohorts are being considered in a separate report (Bradshaw et al, forthcoming). This report examines a range of other differences in circumstances and experiences between the cohorts that may influence language ability including the increase in parental education achievement as well as possible differences in parent-child activities that may have been promoted by interventions such as Play Talk Read. Analysis undertaken for that report showed that after differences in level of parental education between cohorts are controlled for, children in BC2 are still more likely than those in BC1 to have a higher vocabulary ability.
• The increase in vocabulary ability between cohorts was experienced by children living in all the different socio-economic sub-groups. Although we saw a slightly greater improvement in the lowest income group than the highest, with regard to area deprivation the increase was slightly lower in the most deprived SIMD (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation) quintile than in the other areas.
• The results from these analyses suggest differences in ability according to measures of disadvantage remain and there is little to indicate that inequality in terms of early language ability has particularly narrowed between the two cohorts.
• There was no difference in problem solving ability amongst children between the cohorts. However the data show that this was less strongly related to income in BC2 than it was in BC1. This change has occurred because of an improvement among those in the lowest income group as well as a decline among those children in the two highest income groups.

Child television viewing

• The majority of 3-year-olds watched television every day and the proportion doing so increased between 2007/08 and 2013 (81% in BC1 and 86% in BC2).
• The proportion of children who watched three or more hours of television on a weekday increased between the cohorts from 12% (BC1) to 15% (BC2).
• The proportion of children aged 3 watching three or more hours of television over a typical weekend increased substantially from 26% in BC1 to 42% of children in BC2. This increase was seen across all socio-economic groups.
• Time spent watching television was strongly associated with disadvantage (low income households, low levels of parental education and high area deprivation). In both cohorts, children from more disadvantaged households were more likely to watch television for more than 3 hours on a typical weekday and over the course of a weekend.

Parenting support

• Parents in BC2 found it less easy to arrange for someone to look after the cohort child for a few hours during the day at short notice than parents in BC1. 77% of parents in BC1 said it would be very or fairly easy to arrange this sort of care compared with 69% of parents in BC2 and while 17% of parents in BC1 said it would be very or fairly difficult, this increased to 26% in BC2.
• The higher level of difficulty in arranging this type of care amongst parents in BC2 is evident across all socio-economic sub-groups and difficulty increased with socio-economic disadvantage and age of mother. With regard to income and parental education, socio-economic differences were a little more evident in BC2 than they were in BC1.
• Wariness of and reluctance to use sources of parenting support has shown little change across the cohorts. In both cohorts this was more common amongst parents living in more disadvantaged circumstances.

Parental health

• Self-reported levels of excellent health amongst all parents decreased from 21% in BC1 to 17% in BC2. Excellent health in both cohorts was associated with higher parental levels of education, income, older mothers and parents from more affluent areas.
• In both BC1 and BC2 around one in six parents had a longstanding illness or disability.
• There has been no change in the mean physical wellbeing scores amongst parents of 3-year-olds between BC1 and BC2.
• Mean mental wellbeing scores amongst parents have shown a statistically significant increase between 2007/08 and 2013 (from 49.6 to 50.8), which suggests an improvement in the quality of self-reported mental health. This increase was seen across all socio-economic groups.
• A higher score of mean mental wellbeing was associated with a higher level of equivalised household income in both cohorts. There has, however, amongst BC2 parents been a slight and statistically significant narrowing of the gap between the mean mental wellbeing of parents from households in the lowest income quintile compared with households in the highest income quintile.
• In line with trends seen in the wider Scottish population, the proportion of parents of 3-year-olds who smoke has decreased from 28% amongst BC1 parents to 24% amongst BC2 parents. This downward trend has affected all parents regardless of socio-economic circumstances. However, smoking in both cohorts is still more common amongst parents from less advantageous circumstances (low household income, high levels of deprivation, lower educational qualifications) than those in more advantageous circumstances.