Child of the New Century is an important study following 19,000 young people born across the UK at the beginning of the new millennium. By taking part, they’re helping researchers and government find ways to make life better for their generations and younger ones too. This short animated video tells us a bit about why these young people are so special. You can find more information below and throughout this website.
What is Child of the New Century?
Child of the New Century (CNC) is a research project following around 19,000 children born in the UK at the start of the millennium. It is the most recent of four such studies in the UK. The first three studies follow children born in 1946, 1958 and 1970.
CNC has collected information about your lives through childhood and into adolescence. The study plans to continue following you in your teenage years and adult lives. Every 3-5 years, we carry out surveys to collect lots of information from you and your families about different aspects of your lives. This information (fully anonymised) is made available to researchers so they can learn how people’s experiences and circumstances in early life can affect their choices and outcomes later on. In this way, the research helps government, healthcare workers, teachers and others to develop services and policies that help improve people’s health, education, development and wellbeing, both now and for future generations.
Did you know? Child of the New Century has two names! Researchers, politicians and journalists know it as the ‘Millennium Cohort Study’.
Child of the New Century is recording the lives of the generation born at the turn of the millennium. The purpose of the study is to understand the full picture – of your lives individually, and of your generation as a whole.
The year 2000 marked the turn of the new millennium. The UK government thought that coming of age in the 21st century was going to be different. So they asked a team of researchers to set up a study that would help them learn more about this special generation.
Child of the New Century is run by an organisation called the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS), and funded by an organisation called the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
There’s a whole team of people working on Child of the New Century. Managing a study this big requires many different jobs – our team is made up of researchers, survey specialists, data managers and communications staff.
Who can I contact if I have any concerns after taking part? We hope taking part in our survey will be a positive experience. We know lots of people enjoy taking time out to think about and answer questions about their lives. But if it leaves you worrying about anything that’s happening in your life, […]
Child of the New Century is on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram so it’s easy for you and your parents to stay up to date with the study.
To mark your 21st birthday, we commissioned some unique artworks. Since 2021, the thousands of young people who take part in Child of the New Century, like you, began to turn 21. The youngest of our study members celebrated this special birthday in January 2023. To mark this major milestone, and to say an enormous […]
Researchers have used Child of the New Century to learn how circumstances in the very first stages of our lives can influence our health and development.
Children with a disability are more likely to be born into disadvantaged families than those who are not disabled, findings from Child of the New Century have revealed.
Participating in organised sports and joining after school clubs can help to improve primary school children’s academic performance and social skills, according to findings from CNC.
