First analysis of Growing Up in England dataset provides insight into educational attainment and household composition

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has today (30 July 2020) published the first research output from the Growing Up in England (GUIE) project, enabled by ADR UK funding.

A feasibility study using the newly linked, de-identified GUIE dataset was conducted by the ONS Centre for Equalities and Inclusion to test the use of the data for providing insights on personal characteristics, educational attainment, household characteristics, vulnerable groups and geography.

The GUIE dataset includes data from the 2011 Census linked to education and attainment information from a bespoke extract of the All Education Dataset for England (AEDE) from the Department for Education (DfE).

There is currently a need for research to better understand the barriers and gateways to social mobility to inform public policy targeted at disadvantaged children and young people. The GUIE dataset will enable research into the link between family household composition and educational attainment.

The findings

The report shows that a high proportion of records were linked between the 2011 Census and AEDE datasets, the majority of which were made on strong ‘matchkeys’, giving confidence that those links are correct. This successfully demonstrates the feasibility of the newly linked GUIE dataset for providing valuable new insights into the lives of children and young people on a wide scale. The report therefore recommends that research using the GUIE dataset should continue and should consider linkage as an important part of that work.

This successfully demonstrates the feasibility of the newly linked GUIE dataset for providing valuable new insights into the lives of children and young people on a wide scale.

The next steps for the GUIE project include the re-creation of this linked dataset in a new linkage environment at ONS. This will allow for a better matching exercise, as the quality of matches can be reviewed when linkage is conducted.

The report contains outcomes of analysis and descriptions of the linkage methodology used. You can read the full report and download the findings on the ONS website.

The GUIE Wave 1 dataset will be made available to accredited researchers with approved projects to use via the ONS Secure Research Service (SRS). The expected delivery of this dataset into the SRS is late 2020. Sign up to the ADR UK mailing list to find out when the data becomes available.

You can find out more about Growing Up in England on the project overview page.